You have got to be kidding me! How we sit here quietly, letting people like Todd Hennis spew his self-centered poison (Herald, Oct. 29) – just as his mine has spewed its poison into our lives – is beyond me. Mr. Hennis’ speech about the Gold King Mine is a perfect illustration of two ideas that are killing our country and our world. First, the idea that we are still living on the frontier. Look around: There is no more frontier. Our great-great-grandfathers cut it down and killed it all just as fast as they could. It’s gone. The best we can do is survive on what we have left. No one is any longer the noble, lone frontiersman, making his way in the wilderness. That is a romantic notion that is gone. I now live in a community of people – worldwide – who are affected by my actions. If I put my interests above theirs, I cannot call myself a Christian.
Second, the idea that my rights, as an individual, trump the rights of everyone else – that my individuality is somehow sacred – that died with the frontier, too. Todd Hennis talks about his retirement – when people’s physical lives and health downstream of his mine are being affected. Can’t we see how crazy that is? The fact that Hennis is talking about going after the EPA – that has been having to tiptoe around his “rights” and Silverton’s “rights” to maintain its tourist image – while trying since the ’80s to stop this flow of poison, shows how skewed our thinking has become. If there was any sanity left, everyone downstream of that poisonous carbuncle would be uniting to bring a class action suit against Todd Hennis – not the corporation he hides behind – and against Silverton, a small group of people who have looked to their self-interest over the health concerns of thousands of people whose health has been compromised by the poison leaking out of this mine for decades. Gold King Mine is not just Todd Hennis’ retirement, it’s his legacy: His name will be remembered by many people and their families for years to come.
Susan Kolb
Hesperus
