Here is the latest on the proposed Cline Mine, just north of the B.C. border. Montana’s senator Baucus got Secretary of State Rice to urge Canada’s federal government to ask for a more detailed environmental assessment than B.C. requires. However, the government in Ottawa has not taken any action yet.

The article below in the Flathead Beacon shows the immense coal reserves that could drain down into Montana, perhaps ruining the North Fork and main fork of the Flathead River, Flathead Lake and beyond into Idaho and the state of Washington.

The potentially affected part of British Columbia and Montana are very important wildlife habitat are portions very scenic. The North Fork of the Flathead is the western boundary of Glacier National Park.

Cline Mine: What’s Next? Flathead Beacon.

It’s a lot of crap that B.C. protects their environment better than Montana, despite Montana’s many lapses. The Liberal Party government in Victoria, B.C. is  corporate dominated and very hostile to the protection of land, water and wildlife. Note: outside the United States, the word “liberal” often means what would be called “economic conservative” in American political usage.

 
About The Author

Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

3 Responses to Huge B.C. coal mine that would drain into Montana gets attention from Condoleeza Rice

  1. filza says:

    Coal mine like in Kalimantan Indonesia… Kaltim Prima Coal and others company… Indonesia is a rich country with natural resources…

    http://ngadutrafik2007.smandung.com

  2. Bruce says:

    It is a myth that BC is an environment friendly paradise. I remember in the early 90’s, I had people telling me it was paradise, so I took a visit and could not believe my eyes at all the clear cutting hillside and mountain tops. It is ruined to what it must have been.

  3. montucky says:

    I had hoped that that matter would have had at least a little motion in the last month. It’s a very scary thing for the Northwest.

    I live about 10 miles below where the Flathead River joins the Clark Fork of the Columbia, and that mess could eventually end up here, as well as farther downstream to Lake Pend Oreille. An additional concern here is the Milltown Dam cleanup just East of Missoula where there are tons of heavy metals that could potentially get washed down this way as well unless they really know what they’re doing.

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‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey

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