Letter: Put people first in pipe debate

OPINION

Gay Smith and Jack Dugan
Pioneertown Property Owners Association
Hi-Desert Star

As president and vice president of the Pioneertown Property Owners Association, we would like to set the record straight as to the water situation in Pioneertown. We in Pioneertown have been waiting 10 long years to get safe water to drink. Yet each time we are about to realize our dreams, someone who does not live in Section 19 and therefore does not pay a water bill or drink the water, or bathe in the water, or give their pets the water to drink, or worry about the health issues that this contaminated water brings with it, steps in and wants to save the tortoises. We have not seen a tortoise in years. Nor have we seen Indian artifacts on Skyline Ranch Road. Yes, there are some artifacts, i.e. burned pottery chards, in the gullies off the road.

Each time it rains Skyline Ranch Road is dragged so that the residents can get in and out. Do the people who drag the road put up barriers to save the tortoises or walk the road first to remove any valuable artifacts? We think not.

It is time to put people’s lives and the lives of their pets first. It is important to make an 18-inch-wide ditch down the middle of Skyline Ranch Road, which will be covered each night to protect the tortoises, so that the people of Pioneertown have safe water to drink. And after all is said and done, Skyline Ranch Road will look the same as it does today — locked gate and all.