No on I-147

Plenty of money is being put into this year's election, and in the next five days we'll see an even greater bombardment of political ads on the TV, radio and print.

There is one advertising campaign that we hope folks see through. That's the campaign in favor of I-147. I-147 would, in effect, overturn a ban on cyanide heap leach mining for gold.

The campaign to overturn the ban is almost entirely funded — by more than 90 percent — by one company, Canyon Resources, a company whose financial ground is so shaky that the American Stock Exchange has threatened to drop it from its listing.

"This is the single biggest attempt to buy an election in Montana politics," I-147 opponent Gary Buchanan said.

We agree. I-147 is a thinly-veiled attempt to put a huge cyanide heap leach gold mine at the headwaters of the Blackfoot River — one of Montana's most coveted trout streams.

Cyanide heap leach mining has a shaky track record at best. The Golden Sunlight mine in Whitehall, a cyanide vat-treatment mine, has had numerous spills and has contaminated private wells adjacent to the mine.

The good people of the Flathead cried foul when the Canadians tried to pull a fast one with coal bed methane development in the North Fork of the Flathead a few months ago. They need to step up to the plate again and vote against I-147.