The Department of Environmental Conservation may be unable to decide how much damage Pebble Mine will cause, but they are hot on the case of water in Port Protection. Our village has a grand total of 32 water service hookups. It seems our water, which we test monthly, does not meet some government standard, so we either must spend $3 million plus to build an unwanted chlorination plant or else have our wonderful water system destroyed and go back to drinking untreated muskeg water from our local creeks. The resultant sanitation hazards — no flush toilets, no hand washing, no bathing —general health hazards and fire hazards —these are not the concerns of DEC.
I have lived in Port Protection for 42 years and have never been sick from drinking our fabulous unchlorinated water. What are we paying the people who work for the government to do? Sometimes federal regulations need human interpretation. Message to DEC: Protecting the fish is important. Depriving a remote village of its water should be criminal.
Gretchen Goldstein,
Port Protection
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