The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness areas as places “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” If you take that definition for what it is, as I do, you will likely conclude that mining is prohibited in designated wilderness areas. Imagine my bewilderment, then, at the proposal for Rock Creek Mine, which calls for digging and blasting under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness of northwest Montana. A mine in a federally designated wilderness area? But silly me—the mine isn’t in the wilderness, it’s under it. And thanks to the 1872 mining law, that’s permitted. Here I thought the ground I was hiking on, all of it, all the way down to the earth’s core, was protected.

www.SaveOurCabinets.org