Legal decisions could determine area's future

As the fight to stop the Rock Creek mine enters its 20th year, the results of legal arguments to be heard this summer could decide the fate of the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness and Lake Pend Oreille.

The issues that will be debated in the courts are a fundamental interpretation of how much protection federal and state laws afford wilderness, threatened species, and water quality. The consequences of these legal decisions could not be greater.

Rare, if ever, have two natural treasures such as the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness and Lake Pend Oreille been so threatened by the same industrial proposal. When also considering that this same project jeopardizes the continued existence of two threatened species, the grizzly bear and bull trout, one wonders how it ever got permitted.

The answer is the industry friendly nature of the permitting process. The mine was actually philosophically permitted twenty years ago, but the agencies were required to find or create the science that would support that decision. What should make the public genuinely nervous is that a great deal of the science that has been used to support the permitting of the Rock Creek mine is from the mining industry itself. The very fact that grassroots opposition has protected our resources for all these years should indicate how weak the scientific support for permitting is.'

To date, two courts of law have concurred.' Each time the Federal District Court in Missoula has sent back the permit issued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for revision, the new mitigation measures used to satisfy the courts just become more outrageous and less credible.

The permitting of the Rock Creek mine is not and never has been an equitable process. An example of partisanship by the agencies was recently documented when a Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks employee appeared in Revett's annual report to its stockholders endorsing the mine.

We remain very confident because the mine issue is where we want it to be.' It is in the courts where the issue will be examined on its merits. Where the agencies will be asked to defend their management of threatened species and water quality.

JIM COSTELLO

Montana Coordinator

Rock Creek Alliance

Trout Creek, Mont.