Dear HCN, As a longtime resident of the Bitterroot Valley I found the article concerning the Stock Farm development particularly poignant (HCN, 11/11/02: Behind the gate). Copper baron Marcus Daly used his Bitterroot estate, now the Stock Farm, as a retreat from the poisoned air, land and water of Butte and the Clark Fork Valley, caused by the mining and smelting which secured his wealth. The new aristocrats, relaxing behind their gates, come to this same beautiful retreat to escape the environmental and social havoc the creation of their vast wealth has helped cause.

There is not a little irony in the fact that many of these same corporate captains, transplanted here in the “last, best place,” support an administration whose policies threaten the ecosystems and landscapes they come to enjoy. Besides destructive road building, oil and gas development and timber harvesting, these policies include dismantling the Superfund program, which is attempting to clean up Daly’s toxic legacy.

Whether it is building their trophy homes, maintaining the golf courses and landscaping or, as in my case, taking them fly-fishing for a living, there is a nagging feeling in the back of the mind of many a “service employee” that we are enabling and perpetuating the “colonization” of yet another playground for the rich. The locals can only grin and bear it as they make room for Lear jets and golf carts, and pray the once-magnificent fishery of the Clark Fork may someday be restored.

Dave Jones Winston-Salem, North Carolina