During the many months that the Scripps saga has played out on the South Florida stage, I have been alternately amused and dismayed by the failure of political "leaders" to understand the public and environmental outcry over their covert Scripps-Mecca Farms blitzkrieg.

Palm Beach County Commissioners Mary McCarty's and Warren Newell's continuing to push for Scripps to be built there after every setback is just tiring. Commission Chairman Tony Masilotti's whine that the Scripps location debacle is the fault of know-it-all environmentalists is like blaming the cop who pulled you over for a drunken-driving conviction.

It wasn't the environmentalists who secretly picked Mecca Farms for Scripps, rammed through comprehensive plan and regional policy plan amendments, contract zoned the property, carved out a portion of the Corbett Wildlife Refuge for a power substation, invited developers to take sweetheart options on adjacent property and began spending taxpayers' money for construction when a federal lawsuit was pending. It wasn't environmentalists who attempted to end-run federal law in gaining Army Corps of Engineers approval of the project. The Palm Beach County Commission gets credit for all of these brilliant moves.

It has become great political sport to trash environmentalists and conservationists over the past few years as "anti-this" and "anti-that," but we are the great majority who just want to protect the public natural resources we have left and work responsibly to build a better place to live and raise our families.

Absent our ability to transplant a conscience, heart and soul into our local special-interest lap-dog politicians, we will settle for compliance with federal law. Unwilling to barter public trust for the illusion of power or the promise of money, we will go to court. Thank you, Florida Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club for another thankless day of work.