In reply to certain misstatements in last week’s newspaper, I categorically deny that I have ever been offered any compensation by Caltrans nor have I ever been told how much of my property the California and United States agencies want to take, nor how long it will take to build their steelhead trout ladder.
The same government agencies bulldozed my ESHA-protected oak groves on their last project, the Solstice Creek Steelhead Bridge, without either my permission or any compensation. Lots of our oldest trees were destroyed and lots are dying from the 50 earth-moving diesels that spent nine month on my property building their Taj Mahal Trout Bridge in the winter.
In one new account, it was written that we “sued the Coastal Commission and lost.” The fact is that we have never sued anybody. However, when the Sierra Club and the City of Malibu took us to circuit court and the court the appeals, the California Supreme Court, at each level, ruled in our favor.
Article four of our Constitution guarantees the “right of the people to be secure against unreasonable seizures.” We are also assured that no person shall be deprived of property without just compensation. No one has paid me a single cent for any of the dozens of our 100-year-old oaks, sycamore and alder.
The proponents of the fish ladder say this will allow coming steelhead to make their way up Solstice Creek to find deep, cool pools. I have lived alongside Solstice Creek and hiked its 1.8 miles for over 30 years and have yet to find any deep, cool pools. It is either dried up or just ankle deep in sewage runoff.
This year the National Geographic and the National Park Services held their “bio-blitz” and found no fish in Malibu’s creeks. I just wonder where all those steelhead hid that day. There is no evidence of the Malibu steelhead trout any more than there are Los Angeles River sailfish or Ballona Creek salmon. Man cannot, and never has, created a single steelhead trout stream in the desert.
Daniel Forge.