Imagine you are at a Green Bay Packers-Chicago Bears game in Green Bay.
It’s easy if you try.
The Packers fans are fiery and loud. They are chanting “the Bears still suck” for most of the game. Fans from behind the Bears bench shower the opposing players with insults, snowballs, plastic cups and fluids.
After the Packers win the game, the Green Bay fans mock the few Bears fans in attendance. They give a few more choruses of “the Bears still suck” as the dejected Bears players leave the field.
After the game, would you declaratively say that the Green Bay community is not opposed to the Chicago Bears?
No. Of course you wouldn’t. If somebody did say something so silly, you would point and laugh at that person.
Packers fans made their feelings heard loud and clear.
If you substitute Packers fans with residents of Butte’s Centerville neighborhood and substitute the Bears with the British Petroleum/ARCO and Butte-Silver Bow officials who are pushing to dump toxic waste near homes in Centerville and southern Walkerville, then our county reclamation director said pretty much just that.
Speaking on behalf of the Butte-Silver Bow government, the director spoke before the Environmental Protection Agency at a meeting Tuesday morning that was open to the public to observe — as long as you were one of the chosen ones to get a Microsoft Teams initiation to watch on your computer or phone.
At the meeting, the director told the EPA representatives that the community of Centerville is not opposed to the dumping of toxic waste near their homes. Only certain individuals, he said, are against the plan.
That statement could not be further from the truth.
Residents of Centerville — along with some members of the former neighborhood of the Dublin Gulch — made it perfectly clear last fall that they are completely opposed to all dumping plans in the area.
The fact that the county said they would amend their plans to keep dumping out of the Dublin Gulch — even though what they consider to be the Gulch is a much smaller footprint than those who actually lived there say — did not end our concerns about dumping near homes.
On Oct. 17, we packed the Centerville Firehall to tell representatives from the local government and BP/ARCO that dumping in that area should be considered off the table. Other than those paid by BP/ARCO or the local government, not one person at the meeting spoke in favor of dumping toxic waste there.
We also packed the Nov. 1 Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners meeting. It was a standing-room crowd with dozens of people trying to listen in from the hallway outside the chambers.
Again, not one person not paid by BP/ARCO or the local government spoke in favor of the dumping. Every citizen who got up to speak spoke against it.
The residents were upset. They were afraid. They were angry.
But never did they waiver on their opposition to dumping toxic waste near homes in the area.
The next day at an open house with BP/ARCO and the EPA at Montana Tech, the sentiment was the same.
Imagine how you would feel if they wanted to dump toxic waste a short distance from your house. I wonder if you can.
You would also be upset and worried.
Since that Nov. 2 open house, the decisions makers have been refining their dumping plan — in secrecy, of course.
The director sent me a short letter from the “Centerville Park Association” that stated that the group was in favor of reclamation of the area that is now called the “Historic Mining Waste Area.” That area is to the east and northeast of the Mountain Con Mine yard, which is now called Foreman Park.
This one letter, which does not mention accepting dumping toxic waste in the area and does not appear to include a signature, apparently was enough to make the director forget about all the people who clearly voiced their opposition to dumping toxic waste by their homes.
It was apparently enough to turn the vocal majority into “certain individuals.”
Tonight, representatives of BP/ARCO are going to meet to present the Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit Preliminary Repository Screening Report to the Repository Siting Committee, which we were told includes representatives form BP/ARCO and Butte-Silver Bow.
Of course, we don’t know the members of the siting committee for sure because all of their meetings have so far been, you guessed it, secret.
The meeting was posted on the website bpsou.com, and it said the meeting was to be held at 7 p.m. at the Emergency Operations Center (3619 Wynne Ave.).
I posted an announcement on the meeting to encourage people to go, and suddenly the meeting changed. The location was removed from the announcement on bpsou.com.
It turns out that the public is only allowed to view the meeting on Microsoft Teams. (Click here for a link.) The public is not allowed to be there in person. We don’t even know for sure where the in-person meeting will now be.
I protested to the reclamation director, who is listed as the contact of the meeting. I told him many Centerville residents who want to attend the meeting do not have the capability or knowhow to watch on Microsoft Teams.
So, he told me that the county will staff a room at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives and stream the meeting there. That means we will have two government rooms — presumably across town from each other — for one meeting.
This is apparently what the government leaders of Butte-Silver Bow now consider transparency. The decision makers do not have to look into the eyes of those affected by their decisions, and the residents can’t look into the eyes of the decision makers.
If someone stands up and says that the residents of Centerville aren’t opposed to dumping toxic waste in the neighborhood, the vast majority of the people who know the truth cannot say a word.
They can only scream at their computer or phone screens like they are watching a football game on TV.
Community leaders should not be afraid of their constituents. However, that appears to be the case. That is definitely no a sign that the meeting is going to produce good news for those opposed to dumping by their homes.
We are told that no final decision will be made at tonight’s meeting, and that members of the public will have the right to voice their concerns at a later date.
The thing is, the public should have a voice during the process. Otherwise, it is just a sham.
As it is, we see these officials make decisions behind closed doors. Their plans are finalized and ready to go. Then, they pretend to listen to public comments and move along with the plan they hatched in secrecy.
As it is, we have no real transparency and absolutely no accountability with our local government leaders.
This fight over dumping toxic waste near Centerville perfectly illustrates that. Not only are they potentially violating our Montana Constitutional rights to a healthy and safe environment, they are shattering the spirit (at least) of Montana’s open meeting laws.
Now, imagine living in a city-county where the wants and needs of the citizens are actually taken into account before the government leaders make a decision.
Imagine not having to fight your local government leaders to keep toxic waste away from your home.
It isn’t hard to do.
— Bill Foley, who is running for chief executive to restore real transparency and accountability to our local government, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
The ButteCast with Bill Foley 