Saturday, November 5, 2011

More precious than Gold

Well, its been a while since I've posted anything.  Life has a way of getting busier as you get older-spare time is worth its weight in gold pretty much these days as work consumes my being & family is the most important thing in my life these days.  It has been a very busy year, possibly the most rewarding year of my life.  But there are some things happening in this fine placed called the U.P. of Michigan that are just plain alarming to me. Something needs to be done.

Organic, earth first, green, healthy living-we hear these words or terms every day now & they encompass many of our lives.  Manufacturers use these words for marketing mainly, trying to convince consumers that their product is superior & no animals or plants were hurt when making it.  Whatever. Everyone these days realizes how vital it is to take of mother earth, it has been shit on for so long that it is about time we actually give a damn about how we live our lives impacts the environment.  So people are doing their best to try to help out each other as well as their surroundings.

So is it alarming that everywhere else in the USA that state/local governments are fighting tooth & nail against invasive mining and or damming of natural rivers?  We have taken a real kick in the nuts lately here in the Northern U.P. in this department.  First off the city of Marquette & Marquette Board of Light/Power decided to re dam the Dead River system.  This decision was made to re-create Tourist Park Lake, prolly because land owners wanted their property values back-God knows this dam cant be worth the investment to create such nominal power.  Yes, there prolly wasnt much for Steelhead, Salmon or Trout that made it above those falls-but c'mon, this makes the environmental friendly city of Marquette look damn stupid.  What a waste of money & to turn back a natural river is not cool.

Secondly, this mining push has got to stop.  The blasting has started up on the Yelllow Dog Plains & the writing is on the wall.  I fear the worst as one of the most wild & beautiful places I have ever been may be ruined for future generations-I pray that my baby daughter can someday cast for Coaster Brook Trout with me while we watch Bald Eagles & Falcons soar above.



Now the "Back 40" mine on the Menominee river in the Southern U.P.-this is one of the finest fisheries in the United States.  This is a border State & I hope the anglers of Wisconsin can help stop this bullshit.  This is a gold mine & it is as bad or worse than what is happening up on the Yellow Dog Plains.  Kinda hard to stop these mines when our state government wants them to happen because our economy is so piss poor.

Join the fight.  Just tell anyone how much you think this sucks.  Doesn't matter who, just tell someone.  The more people who know about this & don't like it the better.  Only you can decide what is important. My rant........

3 comments:

  1. Geez, Brad, didn't know it was getting that bad. Sometimes it's like living in different states. There's nothing to mine south of the bridge. I feel terrible about the Yellow Dog, may it rest in peace. As for this gold mine- news to me. The state will get its dollars where it can. The New Reality is ugly, and will have its victims. I guess the bombed out husk of Metro Detroit isn't the only vestige of the economic crash. Thanks for making us aware.

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  3. Great post Brad! I hope you don't mind? I'm gonna share this info on my page at www.thefreshwaterfly.com Help make others aware.

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