...to add your voice to the EIR literature on the Prop-O renovation of Echo Park Lake. For the record. Or for the lake, the community, yourself. Depending on your degree of optimism.

Meanwhile, Chicken Corner received a pair of letters.

The first is from Anna Sklar, of Brown Acres fame:

Dear Jenny, Hate to sound like a cynic. But. Many years ago (late 70's), the Bureau of Engineering held many meetings regarding a planned multi-million dollar project at the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant. Dozens of residents showed up, many expressed opposition. Plan went ahead. Oh, by the way, it ended in a Rube Goldberg-like project that wound up costing several hundred million dollars, was finally abandoned in the late 80s. Unused equipment sits like an enormous beached whale at north end of plant.

Unless you can marshall 1) a demonstration of folks (Saul Alinsky style) best done in front of City Engineer offices downtown with lots of notice to >media folk; or 2) many hundreds of letters. ... The only thing that City Hall (i.e., the Mayor) pays attention to is baaad publicity. Heal the Bay began with just a half-dozen very angry, but determined organizers.

Then, artist and community activist Jonathan Williams forwarded the following, to which Chicken Corner gives its most heartfelt cluck of approval:

Dear Ms. Martin, I have been following plans for draining and rehabilitating the Echo Park Lake from the beginning of public hearings.

One issue, which has been consistently mentioned at meetings is the community's concern for wildlife living in the park. This wildlife, most notably birds, depends on our lake for nesting and general habitat. Additionally, citizens of Echo Park and the rest of Los Angeles who use the park do so in large part because of the variety of wildlife present there. People count on seeing birds nesting and raising young at Echo Park Lake.

I understand that no provision has been recommended through the Environmental Impact Report to provide water and nesting habitat for resident birds during the period of construction.

I urge that the designers consider partial retention of water in the lake during construction. Under this condition the existing population of water birds would at least have a chance of remaining to live in our park during construction and we would thereby have a hope that our birds would continue to thrive here in the newly constructed lake thereafter.

If the State of California Department of Fish and Game has not weighed in on this issue, they should. It seems to me unconscionable that birds in our park would not be at least partially provided for in the interim during construction.

A few years ago, in the Chief Parks days, I had an unfortunate concern over some miscreants who lived in the neighborhood. I spoke to my senior lead police officer about it. And was told: if I ever were to call the northeast station, there were some magic words I should use: quality of life. Don't say: There are armed youngsters firing their guns without proper training, and it affects my personal safety. Do say: My quality of life is being impacted when armed youngsters fire.... The authorities had been trained to respond to those words.

Well, help! 911! If Black & Veatch kills the geese and ducks and the coots and the herons at Echo Park Lake, my quality of life will be impacted!

No one goes to a lake just to see water -- they go to see everything that water sustains, i.e., life.

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Email comments for the EIR can be sent to:

Maria Martin (include "Echo Park Comments" in subject) Maria.Martin@lacity.org.