‘Friends of the Dunes’ are confusing silica and sand — again

David Hamilton is correct (“News flash: Dunes will keep blowing sand into Nipomo Mesa,” Dec. 19); a Google Earth photo of the Nipomo Mesa will show the fingers of sand pointing to the Nipomo Mesa; but he neglects mentioning the natural revegetation of the dunes where there are no dune riders. He also errs when he states our forefathers were “wise enough to plant those eucalyptus trees to slow the wind and sand.”

Thousands of Blue Gum Eucalyptus trees were planted on the Nipomo Mesa in 1906 by the Los Berros Forest Company with the idea of selling the trees as hardwood groves. Essentially it was a speculative investment bubble that envisioned eucalyptus houses, furniture, wagon wheels and visions of profits … except that the wood was relatively useless as it warped, fissured and twisted when dried.

So again we have the position of “Friends of the Dunes” (a misnomer), confusing sand (90 microns in diameter) with airborne crystalline silica (2.5 microns in diameter) that forms a plume that wafts across the Nipomo Mesa and is the source of respiratory illnesses.

Closing the beach to riders is not the issue, the issue is the recognition of the problem and mitigating the problem with revegatation … not burying one’s head in the sand and denying the problem.

This story was originally published December 30, 2017 at 12:08 PM with the headline "‘Friends of the Dunes’ are confusing silica and sand — again."