Stop the Strip Mining of Montana's Glacier National Park

Normally I love Canada.  Aside from the seal hunts, it seems like a pretty nifty country. And though my country has its flaws and faults, I’m also a patriot. But this time Canada and the U.S. are both doing something that’s very earth-friendly—and not very patriotic, if you ask me.

These countries are currently shaking hands over a mining and gas drilling deal smack in the middle of the Flathead Valley, which is upstream from Montana’s Glacier National Park. Do you know what’s in this park besides trees and deer and fairies and all the typical park stuff? The United States part of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park—a symbol of peace and friendship between the U.S. and Canada!

I don’t know about you, but an oil-and-gas drilling deal doesn’t really ring “peace and friendship” like flora and fauna do. I mean, did the hippies wear tanker jewelry and sew patches of drills on their bell bottoms? No, they didn’t. And the pollution sure to wind up in this park from the drilling sure wouldn’t make them happy, either—nor should it us.

This strip-mine would result in 325 million tons of waste rock into a tributary of the Flathead River. And one tiny little leak would zap this toxic smoothie right into the Glacier National Park within hours. No more trees. No more deer. No more fairies and other park stuff. So… no more peace and friendship, either?

Joking aside, this area really is the home to many a creature—including grizzlies, wolves, lynx, wolverines, threatened bull trout and genetically-pure westslope cutthroat trout. All of these animals, as well as the animals they pretty upon, would all be in a danger zone if the strip-mine goes through.

This is such a big deal that the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations is meeting together in Spain later this month to decide if this deal would put the park in danger. There’s even an international petition to protest it.

We can put a stop to it. Write to the Canadian Minister of Environment Jim Prentice, the Premier of British Columbia Gordon Campbell, and U.S. Secretaries of Interior and State, Ken Salazar and Hillary Clinton, respectively, and ask that this plan be stopped in its tracks—before it stops the grizzly bears and wolverines in theirs! You can send them all a letter through this form, adding your name to the others all over the world who are protesting the strip-mine.