Letter to the Editor,

Imagine. Imagine losing the beauty of the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness due to pollution.

Imagine losing the spirit of the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness due to a mining company that is so new and untried, it actually has no record of polluting, because it isn’t actually a mining company.

Do your homework – look it up.

Imagine walking in to a lake in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness to find your pristine lake gone – no lake – drained.

Imagine no fish to catch, no bugling elk.

Imagine the only sounds you can hear, day or night, are the constant pounding of drilling, the blasting of mining, and the massive sounds of motorized mining equipment.

It could happen. The American people own the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness.

We hold the wilderness in trust for the enjoyment of everyone in the world, and we are charged by U.S. Federal law to maintain its wilderness character.

It is your and mine to enjoy, and it’s yours and my responsibility to preserve.

If we allow Montanore Mining (an investment company headed by a former metals hedge-fund manager with no actual mining experience) to mine, and if or when pollution occurs – we will have let the wealthy few steal our pristine mountain wilderness away from us – the many.

The issues boil down to two areas of disagreement: To  what degree mining harms the environment, and whether the jobs it produces are worth the damage.

If you want to see the kinds of jobs created by mining, look around.

The cleanup jobs are plentiful – EPA and CDM.

Mining creates jobs during the boom times, and later when the workers try to clean up the mess.

Privatized profit cleaned up at public expense.

Imagine this: If you had known then, what you know now, would you still “support” the W.R. Grace mine?

— Ursula Erickson

Libby