MAILBAG - Feb. 22, 2001

Would someone from the Bolsa Chica Land Trust please explain the

difference between the Bolsa Chica mesa and Edwards Hill?

Both areas are coastal mesas overlooking the same coastal wetlands.

Both areas are also geographically, geologically, ecologically,

environmentally and archeologically identical.

Why is it that these people have fought viciously for years to

preserve the Bolsa Chica mesa, while at the same time Edwards Hill was

under massive development without so much as a peep from the Land Trust?

JOE MEYERS

Huntington Beach

Reasoning unclear on AES commentary

I have tried to decipher Diane Lenning’s commentary on the

relationship between stack emissions from the AES power plant and

bacterial pollution that has occurred off our coast (“AES should reduce

toxins in order to cut down on ocean bacteria,” Feb. 15). In spite of her

sincere attempt, I fail to see the connection.

First of all, it is not clear how the emissions from the stack get to

the offshore bacteria. Also, she refers to nitrous fixation, I believe

she means nitrogen fixation, a process by which certain bacteria convert

nitrogen, a normal constituent of our air, into ammonia.

Ammonia is required by plants as their source of nitrogen. This

reaction is a critical part of the earth’s nitrogen cycle and life on our

planet would not be possible without it. Nitrogen fixation no doubt

occurs in the waters off our coast, but with ammonia being a normal

component of waste water, the amount of ammonia added through nitrogen

fixation would probably be negligible.

Finally, Lenning proposes biofilters to solve the pollution problem.

Where would these devices be installed, and what would they trap?

Lenning raises two important issues related to pollution of our

environment, but the connection between the two is highly doubtful.DAVID

CARLBERG

Huntington Beach

* DAVID CARLBERG is a professor emeritus of microbiology at Cal State

Long Beach.