opinion

From the Madison, WI, Capital Times

The whole idea never made sense to Roscoe Churchill.

Why would Wisconsin, with its rich abundance of lakes and forests, even consider opening its door to the mining industry? the retired elementary school principal from Ladysmith would ask.

Why jeopardize all that, he'd say, for an industry with a truly wretched past -- as evidenced by the scarred landscapes of northern Minnesota and Michigan's U.P.?

And nobody knew more about the industry's misdeeds than Churchill and his wife Evelyn, who spent many summers in the 1970s and '80s checking out mine sites throughout the United States and Canada.

"If there's an open pit mine that hasn't caused major pollution, I'd like the (Wisconsin) Department of Natural Resources to show me where it is," he grumbled in 1991, shortly after the DNR approved permits that allowed the Flambeau Mining Co. -- a subsidiary of Utah-based Kennecott Minerals Co. and British mining giant Rio Tinto -- to build a 32-acre open pit copper mine near the Flambeau River in northwestern Wisconsin.

Churchill, who fought the high-powered mining interests for three decades and achieved legendary status with environmentalists and other grassroots activists, died of prostate cancer early this year at age 90. (His wife passed away in 1996 from a heart ailment.)

But his admirers will be delighted to learn that he fired a parting shot at the industry. It's in the form of a book, "The Buzzards Have Landed!", that he and his friend Laura Furtman completed shortly before his death.

The book, it should be noted, isn't exactly a quick summer read. For one thing, it's 1,180 pages.

It's Churchill 's personal account of "how a British mining company muscled its way into a small rural community in northern Wisconsin" and is replete with examples of "dirty tricks and political finaglings" that helped the company gain approval for its mine. (The book, which is being published by Deer Tail Press and will be available next month, includes a CD-ROM that documents much of the information Churchill relied on.)