Editor:

In the Aug. 20 edition of the North Coast Journal, Richard Engel manages to tie in the sad and troublesome issue of toxic algae blooms in our rivers to HumCPR’s mission of protecting rural living styles (“Mailbox”). As if it were somehow the fault of people who do not live in the city that dogs have been killed by playing in warm shallow waters.

A substantial number of HumCPR’s membership is made up of longtime stewards of the land and “back-to-the-land” environmentally conscious folks who are, in fact, at the cutting edge of such answers to environmental challenges as alternative, renewable energy and conservation as well as creating sustainable human environments. To infer that HumCPR supports failing or otherwise inadequate septic systems or the kind of practices that release fertilizer into our waterways is to play that ever popular but disingenuous game of demonizing those who might hold different views from yours.

And for the record, let me remind Mr. Engel that our major area of concern is protecting the existing rights of Humboldt County’s landowners and working to ensure that the concerns of our thousands of members are heard and addressed as we go through the General Plan Update (GPU) process. The County is making plans that will affect all of our futures and rural landowners need to be at that table. As former Arcata Mayor Connie Stewart stated at an Open Space meeting in 2001, when urging her colleagues to be sensitive to property rights issues: “If I heard that there was a meeting to discuss buying Connie Stewart’s land and I wasn’t invited, the City would never get my property.”

The Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights (HumCPR) is a broad based coalition of people from across the political and demographic spectrum. If you want more information please give us a call at (707) 268-8773 and we’ll send your our newsletters and other materials or you can visit our website at www.humcpr.org.

• Estelle Fennell, Redway *