East Kootenay Residents Land Use Coalition

This cry of a threat to the Flathead and environmental fear mongering has been going on for decades and oddly enough the special values have not been harmed by the province’s management of the region but in fact enhanced if we can believe any of the environmental groups’ rhetoric.

The Geological Survey of Canada found oil seeps in the Flathead in 1892 and since then the Flathead has seen continuous human activities over the past century including logging and fighting a major pine beetle outbreak in the Akamina/Kishinena.

The parks are in danger?  What is the threat?  Is it mining, oil and gas?  Tel us why you are doing this, tell us who funds your group for $1 million per year (your friends in the USA).

You say you don't want a park, but what do you want?  You say that mining and oil and gas has priority, but why has the Lodgepole project been sidelined for more than four years and BP has withdrawn their request for permits to the Flathead?

MANAGING THE FLATHEAD

The eastern half of my Riding, next to Alberta, consists of two river valleys: the Elk River drainage and the Flathead River drainage.

The Elk River drainage starts high in the mountains to thenorth that separate Kananaskis  in Alberta from our Elk Lakes ProvincialPark. The valley is still high elevation at Elkford but decreases inelevation as it meanders south to Sparwood and then swings west through Fernie.

I live almost equally between the Flathead Valley of Montana and the East Kootenays of British Columbia, and have been involved in conservation efforts in the Kootenays for more than 30 years. Consequently, I was bitterly amused to read a recent letter to the Flathead Beacon’s editor carrying on about the potential impact coalbed methane extraction in British Columbia might have on Montana. I am not particularly in favor of either coalbed methane operations or additional mines in the South Country – if for no other reason than that they provide no real benefit to the local communities at this time.

Impoverished peoples speak out against anti mining - 02nd July '07'
Featured News

In another example of an NGO seeking to speak for people who do not want or condone the interference, the following is a letter supplied by Corriente Resources that was written and sent by Rubén Naichap, President of the Shuar Federation of Zamora Chinchipe (the indigenous people of Corriente's project area in Ecuadorto) to Joan Kuyek, National Co-ordinator of Mining Watch Canada:

Re: Mining Watch's Support for Economic, Cultural and Social Genocide of the Shuar People

It's Mining Week in communities throughout British Columbia. However, many of us living in Greater Vancouver probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about mining, even though it affects our lives every day, and generates enormous wealth for the province.

Whether we are talking on our cell phone, driving our car, riding the SkyTrain, or working on our computer, all these things start with mining.