Who does McCain represent?

To the editor:

This month England's Prince Andrew visited our beautiful state of Arizona to promote a polluting, destructive, British copper mine here. Senator McCain recently sponsored land swap legislation in the Senate giving the Brits 3,025 acres of U.S. Forest Service land and exempting that mine from most U.S. environmental, cultural and religious protection laws.

It would obliterate multiple Native American sacred sites, and habitat of an endangered cactus and a number of National Audubon Society "red alert" threatened birds. At the "Apache Leap" sacred site Apache warriors jumped to their death rather than be taken by U.S. Cavalry. Apaches today visit the site to honor them. Would Americans allow a copper mine or oil refinery to destroy and pollute Gettysburg or Antietam battlefields? McCain's mine would consume huge amounts of water from Arizona's rapidly vanishing Lake Mead - as much as a city of 200,000.

The Maricopa Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Arizona Wildlife Federation, San Carlos Apache, White Mountain Apache, Camp Verde, Hualapai and Hopi tribes oppose this affront to mankind and our planet.

McCain, in an Arizona Republic op?ed (Nov. 11, 1996), wrote: "Have Republicans abandoned their roots as the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who maintained that government's most important task, with the exception of national security, is to leave posterity a land in better condition than they received it."

Prince Andrew represents British money, namely Rio Tinto, the world's largest and richest mining company. Who does Senator McCain represent?

Robert Witzeman

Conservation Chair

Maricopa Audubon Society

Phoenix

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