News

Duluth News Tribune
December 31, 2009

The Dec. 20 Opinion section included a commentary by Marc Fink, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, alleging we are giving up too much of our natural resources and could be turning northern Minnesota area into Appalachia because of the proposed PolyMet project ("Creating our own Appalachia means giving up too much"). I'm afraid the opposite is true. Fink stated additional mining could lock the area into a permanent resource-extraction economy. I ask him to wake up! I ask what alternative we have. Mining and wood products support thousands of families. A huge percentage of local jobs result from providing goods and services to employees working in extraction jobs. We must face this fact. We will turn into Appalachia without the resource-extraction jobs in our area. What other opportunities do we have up here? Not everyone can sit at home and write, work in a hospital or be an attorney or judge, or work in other areas of non-resource dependency. We can sell minnows to tourists or be fishing guides - excuse me, I forgot, these are resource-based also.

Bryce Makela Duluth