Letter to the Editor: Let's take a stand against mining Bill Williams

My family moved to Williams just over two years ago. We chose this area for its beautiful forest and people who care about it.

Last year the forest service logged the area around our home. When I first saw it I felt that people were destroying the forest. I soon learned that this was our way of helping Mother Nature with fire mitigation.

Around this time I also learned of the Drake mining claims and their intent to mine pozzolan. This isn't helping anyone other than Drake. Their intent isn't to help but rather to consume and destroy.

The minerals they take don't replenish and there's no benefit to anyone or anything other than the Drake corporation's profits. This is another example of the few who care about our environment and nature trying to stop those who seek to destroy it for monetary gain.

Many of us have worked hard to get here. We've left places where human existence has destroyed nature. For many of us the idea that this area should be destroyed in order to increase the concrete world is not only sad, it's offensive.

Those who don't see this must have hearts as hard as the concrete they produce.

Has Drake exhausted all possible resources for pozzolan?

Are there other areas where it could be mined with less environmental impact?

There's a need for more concrete and to expand our civilization but at what cost?

Everyday we learn of ways that corporations and our government fail to protect us from harmful environmental impacts. Often it's too late to do anything to correct them and those areas become wastelands. Let's take a stand and make sure that doesn't happen here.

Mike Lessnick

Williams