The future is ours to choose

To the editor:

Palmer is a wonderful place to live with a promising future. The new Economic Development Plan for the Mat-Su Borough has a positive vision for growth of the Valley based on its strengths: natural beauty, opportunities for recreation and tourism, agriculture and expanding the medical and educational sectors, to name a few.

Now try to imagine that future with double-bedded coal trucks rumbling through Palmer on 200 round trips daily. Imagine the next windstorm blowing coal dust from Sutton instead of just glacial silt. Imagine black snow.

The Usibelli Coal Co. plans to develop an open pit mine within a mile of more than 100 residential homes in Sutton is just the beginning. An Australian company has applied for a permit renewal for the Jonesville mine. Now imagine double the amount of coal moving through the area. Chickaloon also has an active lease. Now imagine even more impact.

Think tourists will still flock here? Will we still attract new business? America needs energy, but this coal will be shipped to Asia — only to be returned in the form of mercury emissions from Chinese coal plants.

Don’t Palmer and the Valley deserve better than this? The future is ours to choose, but only if we get involved. Otherwise, 30 years from now Palmer could end up looking like a burned out coal town in West Virginia, and we would wonder what happened.

Carol Montgomery

Palmer