Wishbone Hill would make sausages for the few

To the editor:

It is heartening to hear that Joe Usibelli has withdrawn his Department of Environmental Conservation air quality permit for his proposed Wishbone Hill mine, and it is not surprising. The Wishbone mine, just eight miles from Palmer, would be sited adjacent to a neighborhood where an open pit strip mine with heavy equipment running 24/7, along with daily blasting, would pollute the air and disturb the peace. One hundred and twenty-eight families live within one mile, and 25 families live under one-quarter mile (thousands of families live within 5 miles), of Usibelli’s proposed mine. Despite this close proximity to where people live, Joe Usibelli, along with our Mat-Su Borough Assembly, believes it’s OK to ruin their lives for the sake of profit.

At the Oct. 18 assembly meeting, Assembly Member Noel Woods had the temerity to suggest that a residential area should not be allowed near Port MacKenzie because of the anticipated noise, yet he is encouraging the placement of a mine that would both be loud and pollute the air of an established neighborhood.

This assembly’s efforts to go out of its way to satisfy the financial ambitions of big coal, at the expense of borough residents, reminds me of a line from Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!: “Then your fairyland was turned into a slaughter-house, where the many were ground up into sausages for the breakfast of the few!”

Dr. Pete Praetorius

Associate Professor of Communication

Mat-Su College