Letter to the editor: December 6, 2007

Tear the sea wall down

Unless we learn to talk to the seals, the city’s dredging of the sand from the Children’s Pool in La Jolla will not stop the pinnipeds from coming back to have their pups. They were using the beach long before people came. Would you try to drive the whales out of the bay in Baja? It’s the same thing.

Moreover, it is rumored that Miss Scripps’ manager built the sea wall and dedicated the pool. It was 1930, two years before Ellen Browning Scripps died at the age of 94. Regardless of who built the wall, it is questionable whether any person could, in 1930, legally take a piece of La Jolla’s beach and claim it for any special use! Just suppose the beach had been dedicated to the seals!

Regarding the sea wall, it was built with vents through which the water would flow to clean the beach. Why not open the vents again, properly screened to prevent accidents?

The wall itself is old and perhaps it is time to tear it down. Why wait for another accident?

Possibly the above repairs would remove the city’s charge that La Jolla is breaching a law keeping the seals, but what about the aquarium? And San Diego’s other animal exhibits? Why penalize La Jolla?

Maybe it is time for La Jolla to try one more time to secede from the city of San Diego.

Patricia Weber

La Jolla author