SOUNDING OFF:Support for saving ocean is not sinking

I am upset with the editorial regarding the Poseidon desalination plant (“Water fight runs dry,” Feb. 22). I was hoping with a change of the guard taking place at the Independent, new blood would see a need for caution and care in long-term planning regarding the use of the coastline and ocean, and that those of us who voice this opinion would get a fairer shake.

Contrary to your opinion, I think each and every one of us is an Erin Brockovich. If our forefathers had taken a defeatist attitude (i.e. “You can’t win this, give up, it’s a done deal”), we’d be bowing to the Queen and paying tea taxes. If not for marches in the South (“I have a dream”), where would blacks be today? Would women be voting and holding property if the suffragettes had given up? How many more thousands of our soldiers would have died in Vietnam if peace marchers had left the streets (and the news media) had not started to show the body bags coming home?

Closer to home, how long have the Bolsa Chica Land Trust and the Amigos de Bolsa Chica fought to preserve our wetlands in Huntington Beach? Twenty years — more? Southeast residents continue to fight to stop the proposed building of a bridge through their streets to Costa Mesa.

Sixty-four residents filed a class action suit against the Orange County Sanitation District alleging damage to their homes resulting from trenching of our streets for sewer pipelines along Bushard Street.

So the real story in Huntington Beach is about not giving up. It is about how a few people can effect change. Residents for Responsible Desalination and Surfrider are not going to go away.

Catch our wave.