by Rachel Bartlett, Stevensville
I thought I might add more fuel to the fire after reading the article in the Bitterroot Star regarding the proposed Sheep Creek Mine in the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. The article stated, “Rare Earth Element mining has significant environmental and health impacts, including land and air pollution, severe erosion, biodiversity loss and contamination of water resources with toxic chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive materials, and in this particular case, asbestos contamination is also a real possibility.”
It not only causes devastation to our environment, it is detrimental to our own health and safety. I urge you to read the December 3rd edition of the Star to get a better picture of what we are facing in our precious Bitterroot Valley.
Now here is the rest of the story: I am a transplant from Plainfield, Connecticut, a small New England town in Eastern Connecticut. Simultaneous to my leaving Plainfield in 1978, a discovery was made regarding a 29-acre piece of property owned by a man named Gallup. He negotiated a deal with a chemical company that allowed them to dump toxic waste on his 29 acres. This was very close to the water source whereby many of the town’s people got their water. We had our own well but who knew the impact it might have had on our well since we lived so close to the Gallup 29 acres.
Since my family and I left Plainfield, CT in 1978, the Gallup property has been cleaned up but groundwater monitoring and restrictions remain an essential part of the cleanup’s long-term phase. The property contained volatile organic compounds and semi-volatile organic compounds, PCBs and heavy metals. These toxins have dire consequences to human health and the environment. Consequently this site will have to be monitored long term.
Is this what we want for our beautiful pristine Bitterroot Valley?
The Gallup fiasco was bad enough but the proposed Sheep Creek Mine is a monumental environmental disaster that has far reaching consequences for our precious wildlife and our own human existence. We will never recover from it should we lose the fight.
Therefore I encourage all of us to join together and prepare a strategy to fight the powers-that-be. If there is overwhelming support against the mine, I believe we can win. But we must all be of one mind. Never ever give up when you know you are on the right side of the issue.
Letter writing campaigns are powerful. Speaking on a radio show like “Talk Back” in Missoula would be powerful. Informing our legislators, our senator and representative at the federal level can help. Write to our Montana Department of Environmental Quality, DEQ. Use every means at your disposal to inform people of this environmental disaster that is being forced upon us by the greedy politicians. Let us take our government back and make it serve us, the people of this great country we call America.