COMMENTARY — A grassroots perspective

A blaze is threatening all our mines, an inferno advancing toward us at an alarming rate. It is primarily in the form of the preservationist movement and the political ramifications it brings with it.

If we lose the battle with the preservationists, the mining industry will have no land within the U.S. on which to explore, extract or provide the minerals on which the entire world depends. Land will be set aside for old growth forest, the spotted owl, the grizzly bear, butterflies, mountain lions, lizards, turtles, fish, plants and on and on. Those of us in the grassroots movement who need jobs, pay taxes and make up our communities say it is too high a price to pay.

Citizens United for a Realistic Environment (CURE) and other groups such as ours already have won some incredible victories. We took a strong position within the Montana legislature this year and were an integral part of the passage of the first substantial piece of mining legislation in two decades. CURE was formed when the miners at the Golden Sunlight mine were faced with the loss of their jobs. Two years after our mine received a permit for expansion of its operations, five preservationist organizations filed suit against the mine and the state.

CURE was formed and its name was chosen because we all feel the health of the environment is extremely important. But we all know there is not only a physical environment but a human environment, and this human environment has not been a part of the environmental debate.

The employees kicked in their own money to provide the initial funding, and soon vendors and businesses and members of our communities contributed. The group hired a public relations firm and an attorney for the Golden Sunlight lawsuit. The court accepted our petition to become an intervener. We have discovered that by forming grassroots groups such as ours, linking up with other groups that have similar goals and then forming multi-sector coalitions, we indeed can become a force with which to be reckoned. Multi-sector coalitions can be extremely effective in holding back the fire that is threatening us all.

— From an article in a recent issue of “Washington Concentrates,” an American Mining Congress (AMC) publication, taken from a presentation by CURE Vice-president Tamara Johnson of Montana at the AMC’s 1993 mining convention.