Environmental Protection Agency talks with a forked tongue

Letter to the Editor:

I was fortunate enough to grow up in the last wilderness below the 48th parallel. I have been told that by people who had been all over the world, They had come to our little part of Montana to build a dam on the last free flowing river in Montana, the Kootenai. Others came to modernize a failing vermiculite mine, to quadruple its production and to make fireproof paint out of its mine materials, all for some skyscrapers in New York City. I think we all know how that worked out.

They came to the last best place, with no intention to leave it that way, and for years the dust from that mine poisoned the people of that town.

They were sued over it by the state of Montana. The state had three inexperienced lawyers against the six most expensive and experienced lawyers the corporation could find.

They only had to defend the corporation after they stopped killing people, not before the mine closed. So, they were found not guilty on a conspiracy charge. 

Then the Environmental Protection Agency came to the rescue.

One of the first things they did was replace the dirt in town, with worse dirt from upriver. It seems their testing machines were not working right and the dirt was clean. Now they say the area is clean. But don’t disturb the ground or cut the wood within eight miles of town, and don’t mow your lawn until its raining and the ground is wet.

The town has to be clean because they ran out of money and $540 million just doesn’t buy much anymore. Let’s hope it bought the right air testing machine. 

Mr. Peck, they plan to leave you holding the bag, a bag full of vermiculite.

I was at that meeting in December and I saw those reports, in three books as thick as a dumptruck tire. So, you’ll have enough reading to do for the next two years.

As the Native Americans who used to live here would say, “The E.P.A. talks with forked tongue.”

— Kimm Coleman,

Victor