This is the smartest political move of the week. You may not like it; but you have to admit it smacks of vicious genius. I refer to the story that Montana’s two senators have petitioned the United Nations to add Waterton Glacier International Peace Park to the List of World Heritage In Danger Sites.
Its mining implications are profound. Consider: Waterton is the Canadian extension of Montana’s Glacier National Park–but for the border, it is the same. Here is why the senators say the Canadian part should be considered endangered:
The listing is deserved because B.C. coal mining and methane-gas projects “will contaminate one of the park’s most pristine rivers, destroy the habitat of endangered species, and compromise the natural character that makes the Peace Park a world treasure,” the senators state in their letter.
“Given these threats, we must ask you to assist us in petitioning the World Heritage Committee to add Waterton Glacier International Peace Park to the List of World Heritage in Danger so that we can bring international pressure to bear and stop the mining and drilling proposals in their tracks.”
“Coal mining and coal-bed methane extraction pose multiple and immediate threats,” the senators state in their letter. “Coal mining and coal-bed methane extraction near the border of the park will not only be degrading downstream habitat in the park, but will also be contributing to the rapid deterioration of one of this World Heritage site’s most unique natural resources.”
I have driven most every road in both parks. My old-age ambition is to ride my bike around both parks. They are indeed both beautiful beyond description. But the Canadian part is going to have a tough time living up to the Peace Park part of its name. Sounds like it will become the center of a vicious international mining battle. Custer stand down.
Personally I do not know how I would advise BC politicians or miners to proceed on this one. The battle makes for strange bedfellows. I have already been beguiled at dinner by BC environmentalists who have a new-found respect for BC politicians, a surge of patriotism, a flush of anti-Americanism, and sudden emotions of support of Canadian mining interests.
All this would be funny and entertaining, if it were not so serious. The implications of this debate are profound. The fight will strip bare emotions, politics, corporate philosophies, social aims, and the rights and needs of miners. This scrap between two “sovereign nations” will force us all to redefine what it means to be patriotic, professional, practical, and to support or oppose mining.
Maybe we should bring the soldiers home from Afganistan and Iraq and station them along the Monatana versus BC border. Each soldier equipped with a small bottle to take water quality samples, and tanks ready to rush them to the local lab. I volunteer as an embeddded journalist.
