Fuel’s Day joke is on us

We doubt that any of our writings has sparked as much conversation as last week’s column. We thought that we had made the prank obvious. The headline that our editors gave the column, “New coal-plant plan an absolute joke,” should have said it all. Obviously it didn’t, at least not for everyone.

Let’s set the record straight. Our local power plant has no intention of switching to coal, no casino is going to be built in Huntington Beach, and no railroad extension is planned. Also, there is no statute that requires that state lands be offered for sale first to Native American tribes.

It’s true that the streets in town are torn up. There is always some street somewhere that is torn up. It has nothing to do with a railroad being built. No way such a thing could happen without notification of local residents and a lengthy public comment session in front of the planning commission and City Council. We have laws to protect our rights, much to the dismay of libertarians, who want no bothersome government regulations.

Riverside University is fictitious. The wetland in question is owned by UC Riverside; our editors would never let us call that school Riverside University. It is true that the Huntington Wetlands Conservancy would like to acquire this land to restore the wetlands. In fact, Assemblyman Tom Harman is attempting to broker a land swap so that the university would get some state land in northern California and the Huntington Wetlands Conservancy would get the wetlands. (That reminds us, be sure to vote for Tom for state Senate in the special election on April 11. He’s been a great friend of the environment.)

Some of the best clues in our little prank were the names of the fictitious spokespeople, April Primero, Josh Howler and Mark der Scherz. April Primero translates to April First. To josh is to tease, and a howler is a very funny joke. Mark der Scherz was more obscure. A mark is the target of a prank and der Scherz is German for joke.

Another clue was in the number of hotel rooms and parking places, which if you will recall were 401 and 2006, the same numbers as the date of April Fools’ Day. We thought people would pick up immediately on the nonexistent April Fuel’s Day symposium, so we made it more obscure by calling it a Fuel’s Day symposium in April.

The folks at Ascon-NESI got a big kick out of our idea of putting toxic dirt from the Ascon dumpsite onto the wetlands. Never could happen. Fortunately, they didn’t get too many calls. But the city got plenty of calls from outraged citizens. Even folks in Fountain Valley called their City Council members.

Sea and Sage Audubon had the issue on their conservation-committee agenda. We assured them that the story was just a figment of our overactive imaginations. They hadn’t read the column, and by the time the news reached them, the rumor mills had transmogrified the story to the Bolsa Chica wetlands being sold by the state. Hoo boy.