by David Leslie, Corvallis
An old strategic-planning chestnut goes: “If you don’t try to shape your future, someone else will.” The commissioners’ letter opposing the fast-tracking of the Sheep Creek mine may start a process, but it will not end our danger. For me, the question now is “What next?”
My view is that we want the project stopped, or at a minimum, slowed down under a full and comprehensive EIS (Environmental Impact Statement). More precisely, we deserve a decision process that reaches well beyond the narrow concerns of free-market capitalism and national security arguments.
Delaying or stopping this project is not without precedent. In the 1990s, and led by Harry Reid, the then US senator from Nevada, the storage of national nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was effectively stopped. It is not an operational storage site to this day.
We can and should flood our representatives’ inboxes with our demands that they (1) get involved, and (2) protect us. On the not-very-helpful end of the spectrum, they’d each make a couple of calls, coming back to us with a “Sorry, I tried.” But if they accept more personal responsibility and political risk, they could become a voting bloc and demand action. This Washington bargaining tactic is well known: “If you want any of our four votes on X or Y, stop that Sheep Creek project.”
This site near the headwaters of our river makes us but a pawn in somebody else’s chess game. Whether mining interests, lobbyists, or a small cabal of would-be oligarchs, somebody deliberately moved Sheep Creek to an expedited project status.
So, what next?
We should write, email, text, and call Representatives Ryan Zinke, and Troy Downing, Senators Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy, and Governor Greg Gianforte.
We should be prepared to invoke civil disobedience, and, if necessary, block roads, camp on the property, etc. Make noise.
In that old joke about having a ham-and-egg breakfast, we are not the chicken, we are the pig. Let’s fight!