Via the Billings Gazette online today – Interior Secretary Zinke approves ban on new mining claims near Yellowstone – Interior Secretary Zinke approved a twenty year ban (apparently the maximal allowed time window by current law) on new mining claims in the mountain country north of Yellowstone National Park (the head of the Paradise Valley). The BG article is pretty well balanced, even quoting a local mine owner-operator; well worth a read if you’re at all interested in this amazing region.
This was simply the right thing to do for this sector of land and the Yellowstone River, and should be made permanent by whatever legal hoops and hurdles need be surmounted. Kudos to the coalition of locals who have been working hard to get this done; celebrate a well-earned victory, and then hunker down to work through a permanent declaration.
It’ll also be interesting to wait for the Zinke-haters to queue up and begin their caterwauling; just guessing, for example off the top of my head this morning, the ban will be called too-little, too-late, home cooking as Zinke’s a Montanan, window dressing to cover other sins, deemed woefully insufficient in the “big picture”, etc., etc. Caterwaul away, that won’t change the fact this was a good call to make, and those complaining the loudest might just have the most to learn from the united citizen/business alliance model (you might even call them the resistance) that pushed this through.
Attaboy.
Image via the Billings Gazette
