Letter to the Editor - Butte deserves EPA support - but Broadus and Browning do, too

Editor,

Just days after EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler visited Superfund sites in Butte and Anaconda, he announced a plan to weaken common-sense health protections that limit harmful pollution from oil and gas drilling.

Montana has more than 14,000 oil and gas well sites around the state, and Wheeler’s rollbacks mean that hundreds of Montana communities, from Broadus to Browning, will face more air pollution in the form of excess methane, volatile organic compounds and toxic emissions.

The EPA has a responsibility to protect our communities from harmful pollution, whether that pollution was released by a smelter decades ago or by a drilling platform today.

Weakening these standards is an attack on the people who live near these wells and depend on these protections to keep the air they breathe clean. Montanans deserve better.

Sincerely,

Skye Borden

Missoula