Jobs are important, but protect lands

Letter to the Editor,

A big part of a Montanan wanting to live here are its natural treasures.

Many of these protected places human impact is hiking boots only.

Protected from bad negative impact most of us are proud to have such special ground around us.

My 35 years in the Bull River Valley had lots of job troubles never considered as a way to solve them was destroy the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness Area, damage water below tunnel digging to the extreme damage animal habitat to the extreme especially the grizzly now trying to survive in the last 1 percent of habitat.

Jobs in Montana cannot mean damage to so much we value. Geologists have told me for 30 years, tunnel digging from proposed copper mines would cause a mix of toxic water below.

—L.J. LaBelle

Thompson Falls