Mining

Dear Senator Risser and Representative Hulsey, I am deeply opposed to the way in which the Republican-led legislature is willing to repeatedly turn their attention away from the very things that make Wisconsin great and towards an ambitious but vague goal of increasing business opportunity and job creation. The mining bill is a short-sited but far flung hope that jobs are as easy to create as softening a few loop holes and bringing in the earth movers. If I had to chose one thing that makes me call Wisconsin "home", it would be the northwoods. It is in the lakes of the Chequamegon that I learned to patiently wait on fish to bite, to watch the sky, to anticipate the changing weather. In this forest I listened to my grandparents tell me the stories of my family and I learned how to be quiet. In the winter months I sought the silence of skiing as well as the courage to tackle surprisingly hilly terrain. I left Wisconsin after high school to pursue education and international experience. But as my own family grew, I longed to see my children in the woods, to pass on to them the life that I learned while visiting my grandparents in Fifield. But my return has been bitter sweet. The forests of northwest Wisconsin are precisely in the area marked to become nothing more than a means to line the pockets of an already wealthy business and provide a few jobs, many of which will be temporary and unnecessary once the mine is under operation. I am astounded at the lack of vision of this legislature. Have they not sat in a canoe in one of the lakes that will be destroyed by mining? Have they not seen an eagle nesting along the shore? Is our deprivation of the land so acute that we cannot agree there are trees, water and animals and yes, even dirt, that is worth preserving? Please continue to oppose mining in northwest Wisconsin. Sincerely, Amy Grunewald Mattison