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I urge you to stop the proposed deadly smelter, that’s to be built in the Newport-Oldtown area. Carbon dioxide emissions are one thing, but silica emissions are cancer causing and deadly.

Why isn’t this smelter being built in Canada, close to their material source Canadians are good neighbors, but why would they offer us a smelter, to help our employment, rather than employment for their own countrymen? It’s evident this smelter is too dangerous to be allowed in their own country. Then there’s the issue of trucking or rail freighting silica-sand from Alberta down through the U.S. to Oldtown. If there is local concern about the dangers of coal and oil trains, there should be outrage about silica; for it’s more dangerous than asbestos.

Let us not forget the deadly vermiculite plant in Libby, where many suffered and died, from its effects. Yes, I’m sure it met the EPA requirements at the time. But that’s little solace to those in their graves.

This smelter project is so obviously dangerous, that it should be dead on arrival. Let’s look through the smoke screen of jobs and claims of high-tech development, and protect the health of the citizens of Bonner County. No Canadian smelter. Lives are more important than jobs.

A concerned downwinder,

LARRY STONE

Sandpoint