Testimony of Ron Henriksen for the Front 40 Environmental Group
DEQ Public Meeting in Stephenson, MI – January 9, 2019
The PERFECT PERMIT APPLICATION was supposedly filed by Aquila Resources with the MDEQ in November of 2015. A number of critical plans were not fully addressed along with inaccurate and inadequate models and test data. Many items were changed over the first year prior to the granting of a permit with many conditions.
Now a full three (3) years later, we find ourselves reviewing yet another version by way of these amendments which simply confirms that the public was correct in stating the original permit was flawed and incomplete. IF Aquila had completed the Feasibility Study PRIOR to submitting the permit application, these SIGNIFICANT amendments may not have been necessary. WHY are these amendments still written with terms such as “will be provided”; “must be obtained”; and “shall be determined”? Are the plans ever final?
How can this project ever be considered complete or be granted an EFFECTIVE status when there are still many unknown factors (yet to be determined)? WHY is there still missing data? Certainly Aquila must have some reasonable excuse that this information is still not being provided?
It would be appropriate to grant an extension for the review time for several reasons:
- After 16 years of trying to develop the potential project, there still seems to
be a number of unresolved issues. The Front 40 along with other concerned
groups have commissioned to have a technical review of this amendment. - Access to the 904 pages of documents was not user-friendly. The Public
cannot read or comment on that which they cannot find. - The amendments were filed during the holidays when this material could
just as easily have been filed in January of 2019 and filed as a complete
proposal. Now they have added another 55 pages to the EIA; creating more
review. Are there more items? - Perhaps it would be beneficial to the DEQ and the public for the DEQ to
rescind the entire permit application; have the applicant re-work and re-file it
properly formatted – with all the data materials in one complete and organized
application package.