Free the land

The forest stakeholders or whatever they call themselves, are nothing special, since all citizens of the U.S. are stakeholders of all U.S.F.S. lands.

Anyhow, Sen. Chas Vincent, the has-been logger is now a turncoat and is working for the environmentalists’ main agenda of huge wilderness designations is Lincoln County.

Our county is almost split down the middle by the Cabinet Mt Wilderness, yet this is not enough for them, the U.S. Bureau of Mines did a grid survey in the late 1980s on soil samples in the Scottsman Peak area, and the tests taken on the samples were the highest in copper and silver of any in the whole area. And yet though their ignorance of possible hidden valuable mineral deposits, the managers of the U.S.F. right along with the enviro’s and designate this area for wilderness; another area they picked with high mineral potential is Roderick Peak which has one of the largest earth faults in the whole Yaak District. The Buckhorn Mine and Independence are no doubt related to this fault. Also mineralized views of lead, zinc and silver are exposed along this fault line.

Chas Vincent led the charge to give away our water rights and now he wants to give away 180,000 acres of mineral and timber lands of mostly Lincoln County to the D.C. feds to keep in their control as long as we are still a country.

When I came to this country back in 1953 you could drive back in all these old forest roads, pick huckleberries, cut wood, hunt, fish and have the freedom to enjoy these forest lands. These lands lay within the boundaries of the State of Montana and any more I think should be managed by the state. Maybe we could use the old roads again. The U.S.F.S. managers and their enviro friends should not be allowed to put this much land up for a no-use category, without the vote of the people of Lincoln County.

Harvey H. Fredericksen