Another freeway?

Re “L.A. County plans to build first freeway in 25 years,” Feb. 12

As I drove the 14 and 395 freeways to Mammoth Lakes recently, I thought that while I did not like to look at so many electricity-generating windmills on the landscape, we need renewable energy and the infrastructure that creates it must go somewhere.

So there’s a difference between windmills in the desert and the proposed 63-mile freeway that would connect Palmdale and Lancaster to Victorville, Apple Valley and Adelanto.

The freeway will permanently scar the landscape and obliterate some of the last available open space in Los Angeles County. Massive new developments will accompany the freeway, creating a second San Fernando Valley in the desert.

The highway developers are moving forward with a highly flawed environmental impact report that fails to address what will happen to endangered animals in the high desert or our iconic Joshua trees. This is totally unacceptable.

I thought California had matured to the point where we can develop transportation and housing projects and also protect the environment at the same time. To keep California golden, we must reject this destructive project. Belinda Faustinos Rosemead The writer is executive director of the group Nature for All and the former head of the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy.

Mel Melcon Los Angeles Times A NEW 63-mile freeway in the high desert would have its western terminus in Palmdale, above.