A strong community that stands united

To the editor:

Divide and conquer is a term used to describe the strategies that have long been associated with the mining industry.

Early in the planning process, two representatives from a mining company, normally a man and a woman, come into communities to size up opposition while looking for people in politics, local businesses and potential spokespersons who they can recruit and manipulate with financial backing and business support, while creating controversy and division in communities.

The purpose of creating division is to weaken communities. A strong community is one that stands united. A divided community is weaker and easier to control.

One way divisions are created in communities is by taking over community councils.

This strategy of replacing diverse board members with pro coal members has been proven to work well in the Sutton and Bufalo Mine/Soapstone communities by spreading lies and deceit, pitting neighbor against neighbor.

Chickaloon is the next community targeted.

Representatives of Riversdale, the Australian mining company that won the bid on 11,000 acres in Chickaloon, were at our May 3 community council meeting for Bufalo Mine/Soapstone. They were never introduced to the members by our president, but he met with them after the meeting was adjourned.

The divide and conquer strategy became even more apparent at the Aug. 2 meeting when the wife of our president accused our past council of wanting to take away the community’s gun rights, when in fact the past members are gun owners and most are hunters.

This strategy is very slow and calculated with all intent of destroying communities without any thought given to the health and welfare of the residents or the families they destroy in the process.

There are some politicians and community leaders who have sold their souls for that pat on the head from the mining industry telling them how good they are while ignoring the most important resource the state has — its people.

What formula do the coal mining industry and our chosen politicians use when determining the monetary value of a husband, father, wife, mother and children while knowing full well the communities that will be impacted and destroyed in the process before it will no longer be financially beneficial for them to proceed?

Residents are already financially burdened with bad investments and mistakes made by our leaders. The mining industry has a long history of financially destroying communities. To ignore this is irresponsible.

We will continue to build good communities that have provided steady growth in the Valley for the past 25 years. This growth has had nothing to do with mining; it has had everything to do with clean air, clean water, great place to raise a family, sustained property values and good jobs.

If a life is taken and a family destroyed by a preventable act, is it then OK to subject others to the same act?

Bonnie Zirkle

Palmer