Category Archives: Editorials

Editorials from other publications.

Preserving the Great Lakes up to the people

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Another opinion
May 29, 2011
The Traverse City Record-Eagle

The history of natural resources is simple. They vanish rapidly when they become commodities – even when they seem in unending supply.

In Michigan, it took less than a century in the 1800s to devastate fish populations of the Great Lakes, cut down primeval forests, shoot millions of passenger pigeons to extinction and annihilate sturgeon.

As millionaire Chicago fish dealer Alfred Booth said in 1885: “It did not take long for capital to see the rewards which might be gained by reaping the fields which Nature had so abundantly supplied with a crop that cost nothing for the sowing or raising, and but little for the reaping.”

Booth was talking about fish but his words apply to any abundant natural resource of the 1800s that was cut down or slaughtered and shipped off to far-away markets.

Fresh water from the Great Lakes apparently has become the region’s last “free” crop to extract, sell and export.

This is what the Great Lakes water fights of the last three decades really are about. It’s an important battle and will have great impact on the region’s future.

It is why governments, municipalities, elected leaders and individuals must become better stewards and more educated about the important role the Great Lakes, with 94,676 square miles of surface water, play in this region’s life, economy and natural world.

It is why fresh water must always be seen, protected and managed as a “public commons” by those who live around it – not international corporations and Wall Street.

Water is a vastly different natural resource than timber, wildlife, minerals and other natural resources. Humans, animals, plants and ecosystems cannot survive without it.

This is why fresh water, lakes, rivers, streams and navigable waters long have been protected by law and regulations for the common good.

To legally identify water from the Great Lakes as a “commodity” sets up a legal framework that would allow it to be siphoned off and sold for use outside the Great Lakes basin.

Current attempts to dismantle state and federal protection laws enacted in the 1960s and 1970s are an outrage given the history of these freshwater seas.

Traverse City has become a center for water advocacy, thanks to conservation lawyer Jim Olson and many Michigan residents. Olson was the attorney in the nine-year case of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation vs. Nestle Waters of North America in Mecosta County.

He and other water activists who formed Flow for Water are vigilant sentinels for the Great Lakes and have done much to educate the public in annual conferences like “Saving the Great Lakes Forever,” held at the State Theatre and Northwestern Michigan College earlier this month.

“Too many people see the Great Lakes as a big dollar sign,” keynote speaker Maude Barlow said. “This way of looking at nature as a resource for us is failing the Earth.”

She’s right. The history of the Great Lakes’ natural resources proves that.

Sessions like this month’s conference – organized by Flow for Water, the Great Lakes Water Institute at NMC and Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation – keep water issues in public focus.

Without them, people might lose sight of what these great bodies of fresh water mean to Michigan, the United States and the world.

The lakes clearly need strong advocates, stewards and leaders at the grass-roots level all along their shores.

Recent water politics and court decisions show us that the federal and state governments, big business, and the Michigan Supreme Court have little interest in saving Great Lakes water.
© Copyright 2011 The Traverse City Record-Eagle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/562863/Preserving-the-Great-Lakes-up-to-the–people.html?nav=5003

What’s the rush on mine permitting?

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By Al Gedicks

May 19, 2011  http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/122260424.html

Should the state’s regulatory authority over the metallic mine permitting process be dramatically reduced to accommodate the wishes of a mining company to receive a permit in record time? This is not a hypothetical question.

Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) has met with several legislators about its proposed open pit iron ore (taconite) mine along the border of Ashland and Iron counties to push legislation that would drastically speed up the mine permitting process.

The present review process, which was the result of hard-fought environmental battles in the 1970s, can take several years, depending on the complexity of the mine plan and the potential environmental impacts of the project. However, Sen. Rich Zipperer (R-Pewaukee) and state Rep. Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee) plan to propose legislation that would reduce the review to 300 days. GTAC President Bill Williams told a reporter that his company may abandon its plans for a $1.5 billion taconite mine and processing plant if the process takes too long.

Ever since a grass-roots Indian and environmental alliance defeated a proposal to build a metallic sulfide mine at Crandon, the international mining industry has considered the state among the least favorable places for mining investment.

In 1998, the state passed the Mining Moratorium Law, which requires that before the state can issue a permit for the mining of sulfide ore bodies, potential miners must provide an example of where a metallic sulfide mine in the United States or Canada has not polluted surface and groundwaters during or after mining. In 2003, the Sokaogon Chippewa and the Forest County Potawatomi tribes bought the Crandon mine property for $16.5 million and ended a 28-year conflict over the mine.

GTAC now wants to turn back the clock on environmental protection and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples. Gogebic Taconite is a limited liability company registered on the Toronto Stock Exchange and owned by the Cline Group, a coal mining company based in Florida. Christopher Cline is a billionaire who owns large coal reserves in Illinois and Northern Appalachia.

If GTAC has its way, local citizens and the Bad River Chippewa tribe, who will be most directly affected by the proposed mine, will have little opportunity to participate in a thorough review of the social, economic and environmental impacts of the project. What information might be disclosed during a mine permit review process that would be so threatening to GTAC?

Bad River Chippewa Chairman Mike Wiggins Jr. is concerned that this mine could discharge polluted water to the Bad River watershed and the tribe’s wild rice beds in the Kakagon Sloughs, a 16,000-acre complex of wetlands, woodlands and sand dune ecosystems that is one of the largest freshwater estuaries in the world.

Wild rice is a sacred plant for the Chippewa and is very sensitive to water contamination as well as fluctuations in water levels. Dewatering operations at the proposed mine could lower the water table around the mine. It was the effort to protect the Sokaogon Chippewa’s wild rice beds that propelled the Crandon mine conflict.

The proposed mine involves extracting taconite by removing about 650 feet of overburden and creating a narrow pit around 4 miles long, up to 900 feet deep and a quarter-mile wide. The overburden would be dumped in massive tailings piles along the northwest side of the Penokee-Gogebic Range and at the headwaters of the Bad River Watershed. These large tailings piles have the potential to generate acid rock drainage if sulfide minerals are present in the waste rock.

These issues need to be evaluated in a fair and open environmental review through which the public and the Lake Superior Chippewa bands have the opportunity to have full disclosure of the potential impacts of the project. Legislation that would reduce the review process to 300 days would severely limit full disclosure of these impacts and be in direct violation of both state environmental law and treaties with the Lake Superior Chippewa bands.

Zipperer has expressed his desire to have the legislation passed before the end of the current session on June 30. Why is this legislation being fast-tracked? If passed, this legislation will effectively exclude Wisconsin citizens and tribes from having a voice in one of the most far reaching environmental decisions facing northern Wisconsin communities.

Al Gedicks teaches sociology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and is author of “Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations.”

Do the research

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Daily Mining Gazette 5-19-11

To the editor:

Reading articles regarding Kennecott’s Eagle Mine, why doesn’t the news media produce editorials exposing Rio Tinto’s negative impacts to keep local residents informed of what would/could happen here?

Is the media neglecting information that validates Rio Tinto’s history (of) continued negative impacts upon environmental/eco-systems, human health, and safe labor practices?

Google Rio Tinto and do some research. The following sites will identify how Rio Tinto’s operations, including mining, have negatively impacted communities and created devastating environmental/eco-disasters that will negatively impact human health forever, with Rio Tinto simply walking away with the attitude, “We have the lawyers and monies to buy who/wherever.”

Review: “Rio Tinto expansion will make air even more toxic,” (Salt Lake City Tribune), then read Fred Fox’s letter to the editor of The Mining Journal, Marquette “Stop the suits,” (May 15, 2011); (lawsuit) Hagens Berman v. Rio Tinto, filed Sept. 8, 2000; U.S. District Court, California; “Paul Howes declares war on Rio Tinto,” labor practices; “Chinese court hears case against Rio Tinto workers,” Trade law violations/bribery; and, “Pressure on Rio Tinto Alaskan Pebble Mine,” (an) unwanted mine in Alaska.

This is just a minute number of sites that identify how arrogant, bullying, and corrupt Rio Tinto is.

In fact, from numerous articles you may even conclude Rio Tinto and/or its subsidiary companies and agents have bribed officials to violate trade, state/federal environmental laws and humanitarian rights for profits.

Thus, I ask, why did Representative Tom Casperson tell Richard Sloat, Iron River, “Take them to court,” Daily News (May 10, 2011), letter to editor, “Protecting our water” after Mr. Sloat alleged mining permit laws were broken, by state issuing authorities, regarding Kennecott’s new reverse osmosis water system which hasn’t been tested in any active working mining environment and would/could endanger our local residents’ health, our environment, and the Upper Peninsula’s drinking waters forever.

If individuals possibly broke laws, why aren’t our representatives demanding an investigation of these corporate corruption allegations rather than brushing them under the rug?

And why (aren’t) our representatives demanding our judicial system ferret out and prosecute everyone who has possibly broken any laws related to the Kennecott Eagle Project, especially those whose actions would/could jeopardize our environment and/or residents’ human health?

Last question: Who in state/federal government received campaign contributions or gratuities from, and has a hand in, Rio Tinto and/or a subsidiary company’s pocket?

RAY WICKSTROM

Gladstone

Opinion: Kennecott Trucking

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Peshekee Road: A cautionary tale gives perspective

January 23, 2011 by Jon Saari http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/558055/Another-opinion.html?nav=5003

In 1890-1892 the Iron Range and Huron Bay Railroad built a mine hauling railroad along what is now called the Peshekee Grade/County Road 607. As recounted in an enterprising history by Robert D. Dobson, this venture was designed to link the Champion Mine with an ore dock on Huron Bay, a distance of about 40 miles.

Fifteen hundred workers laid the tracks and blasted cuts through the rocks, but the project failed miserably. Engineers had underestimated the steepness of the slopes descending to Lake Superior, and steam locomotives were unable to negotiate the climb or the descent. It became the Railroad to Nowhere.

The chief engineer fled to Mexico, the workers went unpaid, the ore dock was dismantled and the rolling stock sold. But the failed railroad eventually became the main route of a gravel road that facilitated modest development in the western part of the Michigamme Highlands: camper associations, second homes and logging.

Most of the land stayed wild and undeveloped. Parts of it became protected wilderness areas: Craig Lake State Park and the federal McCormick Tract. As late as the 1990s, it was possible to buy whole sections of land with undeveloped lakes on them – a rarity anywhere in the lower 48.

Kennecott’s Eagle Mine lies about 12 miles east of the Peshekee Grade. Some area residents imagine that a new, little settlement may grow up around it, like the mining locations of the past. The mine and a new proposed North-South road, so the storyline went, would open up the back country to development: a few stores, a bar, maybe a resort or motel.

But I think this is an illusion. This alternative mine haul road, officially cancelled by Kennecott this week, would likely have barely outlasted the mine, which has a projected life of 6-8 years and no guarantees beyond that.

A better image of that haul road’s likely future would be today’s Peshekee Grade: created by an inflated vision of usefulness, it has become a step-child of the Road Commission, abandoned to the bruising elements of wintertime ice and snow, freeze and melt. The Kennecott Highway would have become an expensive Road to Nowhere.

This region stayed undeveloped because the land is harsh and inhospitable to inattentive humans, including engineers, investors and recreators. Snowmobilers better be thickly clothed and fully fueled when they head out across it, and even then they are running risks.

I met a man in L’Anse who was once snowmobiling along the headwaters of the Peshekee when his machine broke through the surface; he had unknowingly been sledding on top of the tag alders, on six feet of compacted snow!

At a public hearing on the North-South Highway, a Township Supervisor once remarked that the extensive McCormick wilderness should be “enough playground” for us silent-sport environmentalists. He misses the point. It’s not primarily about recreation or scenic beauty, but prizing intact ecosystems, appreciating their contributions for healthy populations of native plants and animals, and not degrading them.

To protect its intact ecosystems, the U.P. cannot be a few islands of wildness. It needs bio-gems as core areas, but the linking corridors and buffer zones are really the key to long term sustainability. These are areas of mixed usage, of working forests and backwoods camp culture and recreational trails. Here we must be particularly careful when we add a road, a trail, a power line, a pit or a mine.

The small changes do add up, inexorably. Will the “next generation” of natural resource users, in particular non-ferrous mining and biomass energy projects, get it right? Don’t expect Rio Tinto or even the DNR/DEQ to speak up for the best and highest uses of the land. Be part of the watchdog movement over industry and government that offers a hope that this place we call home will remain special for a long time.

Editor’s note: Jon Saari is a retired Northern Michigan University professor and member of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition.

From Teresa Bertossi:  http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/558089/Bad-planning-here.html?nav=5067

And from the Editor of the Mining Journal:      http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/558053/Kennecott-move-to-halt-road-work-is-regrettable.html?nav=5003

Headwaters News:  http://headwatersnews.net/feature/mining-road-plan-must-have-public-priorities-not-rio-tinto-profits-in-mind/

Who owns the Oquirrhs, Rio Tinto or Utahns?

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http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/50953786-82/rio-tinto-public-utah.html.csp#disqus_thread

By Randy Crane

First published Dec 31 2010 01:01AM in the Salt Lake Tribune
Updated Jan 6, 2011 12:57PM

The United States may have gained its independence from England after winning the Revolutionary War, but today Utah finds itself locked in a David and Goliath struggle with a new version of the British Empire — London-based mining colossus Rio Tinto.

Our nation’s 1872 mining law is a legal relic from the pick-and-shovel age, still being used by mining companies, even foreign ones, to lay claim to American public assets at 1872 prices.

With little environmental restraint or public health protection, it still allows miners to virtually steal public land, paying next to nothing to the government, poisoning the land and water and often leaving American taxpayers to clean up the mess.

Rio Tinto/Kennecott has exploited every word of this law while putting on a public facade proclaiming their environmental sensitivity and community loyalties.

Their true loyalties revealed themselves recently when Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon challenged the British Goliath, demanding public health protections before it begins swallowing up the south end of the Oquirrh Mountains. Rio Tinto refused.

The outcome of this fight will permanently shape or destroy the landscape at the heart of Utah more than any other single issue. But for residents of the valley’s west side, this has also become up close and personal.

Most of the canyons on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley are protected, but Rose, Butterfield, and Yellow Fork are the last three canyons on the west side offering any hope of public accessibility because Rio Tinto has closed all others to public access. Now the company has filed mineral claims on those canyons and is threatening to mine all three.

Moreover, Rio Tinto is aggressively pursuing a 1,000-foot expansion of its open-pit Bingham mine to the south, and wants surface rights to add to its mineral rights in Rose Canyon Ranch. Rio Tinto seems determined to go wherever it wants, never mind the aesthetic, environmental and health consequences. The nearby residents feel like a cancer has started spreading throughout their community, and that could be literally and figuratively true.

Rio Tinto plans exploratory drilling in Rose Canyon Ranch at the 2,000-foot to 3,000-foot level. Some 20,000 people in unincorporated Salt Lake County, Herriman, Bluffdale, and Riverton get their water from an aquifer that would be penetrated by the drilling.

If Rio Tinto decides to mine in Rose Canyon, the aquifer could be at serious risk for contamination or depletion by the ensuing underground blasting, tunneling, and water diversion from shaft mining. There already is evidence that existing Kennecott activity is depleting our aquifer.

Furthermore, if the county sells the surface rights, our open-space “jewel” could end up like Butterfield Canyon, plastered with No Trespassing signs, or worse, obliterated by a new mountain of mining waste rock. Even without Rose Canyon, an expansion of the Bingham pit will add millions of tons and hundreds of feet to the south waste-rock piles seen from every corner of the Salt Lake Valley and even by space satellites.

But for every Salt Lake County resident, especially on the west side, this is much more than an issue of destroying natural beauty in our collective backyard. It means more dust pollution contaminated with heavy metals and more diesel emissions, both with extensive health consequences, including higher rates of cancer.

Mayor Corroon has courageously declared that the county will not sell the surface rights to Rio Tinto unless it agrees to a sensible plan for monitoring and mitigating the air and water pollution that will surely accompany any expanded mining activity — hardly an unreasonable position. Several County Council members have echoed their support.

But Rio Tinto refuses to cooperate, which speaks volumes about its commitment to the community versus maximizing profits at London headquarters ($5.3 billion last year).

Old-fashioned British Empire resource colonialism is alive and well in Utah. This modern-day English tyranny is worthy of some tea party righteous indignation. But while most Utah politicians are still hiding in the bushes, Corroon has picked up his musket and fired a “shot heard round the valley” and all the way to London.

The end result of this battle will answer these questions: “Who owns the Oquirrhs?” and “Who owns our air and water, British CEOs or Utah citizens?”

Randy L Crane is a member of a Herriman home owners group opposed to Kennecott’s expansion.

Read more on Kennecott in Utah:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/51005673-82/kennecott-plan-utah-power.html.csp

Al Gedicks: Chevron should pay for its disaster, too

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by Al Gedicks

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/opinion/column/guest/article_49fb9946-7fed-11df-b8c6-001cc4c002e0.html

While most Americans are familiar with the Exxon Valdez spill, few have heard of Chevron/Texaco’s far more serious oil disaster in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater (known as “produced water”) into the Amazon from 1964 to 1992. According to the Amazon Defense Coalition, that amounted to “about 4 million gallons on a daily basis, or a total of 30 times more crude than was spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster.”

The area affected by Chevron/Texaco’s contamination is roughly the size of Rhode Island. The toxic wastewater discharged into local streams and waterways contained a variety of toxic metals and cancer-causing petroleum hydrocarbons, including benzene, toluene, arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium. By dumping the wastewater – instead of the common practice in the U.S. of reinjecting it into the ground – the company saved an estimated $3 per barrel, or about $4.5 billion.

In addition, Chevron abandoned roughly 1,000 open-air unlined waste pits filled with dangerous toxins. Activists describe the devastation as an “Amazon Chernobyl.”

Many Americans breathed a sigh of relief when President Barack Obama pressured BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund to compensate victims of the Gulf oil disaster. The victims of Chevron’s contamination were not so fortunate. Thirty-thousand indigenous peoples and settlers from Ecuador’s Amazon basin are suing Chevron for contaminating some 1,700 square miles of Amazon rainforest in what the plaintiffs say is the largest contaminated site on Earth. The case, originally filed in 1993, is now being heard in the oil town of Lago Agrio, Ecuador. The suit charges that Chevron/Texaco engaged in “negligent, reckless, deliberate and outrageous acts.” The plaintiffs allege these actions led to the systematic and irreversible destruction of their homelands and provoked a health epidemic. Levels of petroleum byproducts have been found in water used for drinking, washing and bathing that are far in excess of recognized European safety limits. Residents of oil-impacted communities have suffered increased rates of cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, skin disease and nerve damage as documented in recent scientific studies.

The company has argued it already spent $40 million on cleanup and that the Ecuadorian government had already released the company from any liabilities associated with its operations. However, as the trial proceeded it became clear that Chevron’s cleanup consisted of covering some of the waste pits with dirt while the toxins seeped into the groundwater. If Chevron loses this case, as appears likely, the company will face a $27 billion liability for oil damages, cleanup costs and compensation for cancer deaths.

When the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York sent the case back to Ecuador in 2002, it also ruled that any financial penalty imposed against Chevron would be enforceable by U.S. courts. To avoid paying the $27 billion, Chevron has filed a claim under the United States-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty asking an arbitrator to order Ecuador to prevent judgment from being enforced against Chevron pending the outcome of the arbitration. Steven Donziger, a U.S. adviser to the plaintiffs, says Chevron is trying to evade responsibility for its toxic legacy by taking its case to a court where the plaintiffs aren’t represented. The arbitration claim does not affect the Ecuadorian court proceeding.

A victory for the plaintiffs in Ecuador will reinforce and extend the precedent already established in the BP disaster – namely, that Big Oil cannot escape liability for environmental negligence, no matter where the damage occurs.

Gedicks is a sociology professor at the UW-La Crosse and author of “Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations.” Posted in Guest on Friday, June 25, 2010 4:45 am Chevron, Amazon Rainforest

Editorial from Rep. Stupak: Gulf spill holds lessons for protecting Michigan waters, Great Lakes from drilling, sulfide mining

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June 26, 2010

By U. S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee)

WASHINGTON, D. C. — It is difficult to think of northern Michigan without also thinking about the Great Lakes. These waters are vital to our economy and are relied upon by 45 million people for drinking water, fishing, recreation, agriculture, industry and shipping.

That is why, in 2005, I fought to pass a federal ban on oil and gas drilling in and under our Great Lakes. As we are witnessing right now in the Gulf of Mexico, oil spills know no boundaries. Without a federal policy, all of the Great Lakes states could have different laws on drilling in our shared waters, putting us all at risk. As the tragedy in the Gulf unfolds, the importance of this ban on drilling in the Great Lakes takes on a greater significance.

In my investigations as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, we have uncovered thousands of pages of documents showing BP was willing to cut corners on safety in order to save time and money — this despite the fact that BP’s own engineers described the well as a “nightmare well.”

This mismanagement has continued in BP’s response to contain the leak and clean up the spilled oil. The latest report estimates 35,000 to 65,000 barrels of oil are leaking into the Gulf daily — up to 12 times more than BP’s original estimate of 5,000 barrels a day. Even BP admits the earliest the spill will be stopped is August when drilling of relief wells is completed. In the meantime oil continues to flow, contaminating marshlands and beaches and killing the fish and seafood that much of the Gulf’s economy depends on.

While drilling for oil and gas is banned in the Great Lakes, other actions still threaten our waters. Mining has been done safely to the benefit of the Upper Peninsula economy for generations, but the sulfide mine proposed in Marquette County by the Kennecott Minerals Company raises concerns that have yet to be adequately addressed.

Both BP and Kennecott’s parent company, London-based Rio Tinto, have earned reputations for their willingness to cut corners on safety and environmental safeguards to improve their bottom lines.

BP reached an agreement with the President to set up an independent escrow fund to ensure the residents of the Gulf receive the claims they deserve in a timely manner. I remain concerned that Kennecott’s $17 million assurance bond does not provide nearly enough funding to address potential contamination that may continue years after Kennecott leaves the U.P. Like BP, Kennecott — not the taxpayers — should be responsible for the cost of cleaning up any pollution they create.

Unfortunately Michigan’s mining laws fall short of holding Kennecott accountable. State permits were approved without requiring an Environmental Impact Statement and without independent baseline hydrological and geological studies. Because there is no evidence of the environment’s condition before Kennecott starts mining, there is no way to prove what damage they cause.

We should heed the lessons we have learned from the Gulf spill. Weak state regulations in place for sulfide mining are worthless without proper enforcement. Given Michigan’s continuing budget problems, it seems unlikely the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment will have adequate resources to ensure Kennecott is complying with safety and environmental standards. Kennecott should be responsible for providing the state with the funding needed for these inspectors.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will announce by the end of the month whether federal permits are necessary for the mine to move forward. Kennecott deserves a timely answer from the EPA just as the people of Michigan deserve stronger safeguards and greater financial assurances from Kennecott.

Oil companies have been engaged in deepwater drilling for 30 years, yet they have been completely unprepared to handle a worst-case scenario. Sulfide mining has never been done — much less done safely — in our region. I have little confidence that the proper precautions and contingency plans are in place to prevent contamination of our streams, rivers and the Great Lakes. The financial protections put in place for taxpayers are symbolic at best. As we have seen in the Gulf spill, if we wait until a problem occurs to find a solution it is already too late.

In contrast, Jason Allen, a contender for Bat Stupak’s congressional seat,  calls for reduced regulation of mining and forestry in Michigan.

By Eartha Jane Melzer 6/22/10

While many are calling for increased federal oversight of mines in the wake of the Massey mine disaster, and of industrial processes generally as BP’s oil rig continues to leak into the Gulf, Jason Allen — a major Republican contender for the congressional seat long held by Bart Stupak — is saying that he would use his seat to roll back federal environmental regulation.

Campaigning at a luncheon hosted by the Antrim County Republican Women in Elk Rapids on Monday Allen blamed both state and federal environmental regulation for Michigan’s high jobless rate.

He said that he would fight the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as state regulators to ensure that the nickel sulfide mine planned by Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company gets built on the Yellow Dog Plains west of Marquette.

This spring Kennecott declared that it did not need a federal water permit for the project and began construction of the mine without approval from the EPA.

The mine has Upper Peninsula groups including the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community are suing state agencies over the approval of permits for the project, arguing that it will harm the watershed with acid mine run off and damage cultural resources.

“Places like Baraga are running at 23-24 percent unemployment,” Allen said, “and we have to get those people back to work in the mines.”

“We will continue to fight the EPA and continue to fight what is going on with the [Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources and Environment] to get that mine licensed because that provides good solid jobs to get our people back to work and that is how we feed America.”

Allen also said that as a U.S. congressman he would fight to expand timber harvest on federal land.

“They are only harvesting about 18 or 15 percent of the entire available forest on federal lands,” he said. “We also will try to use federal lands for anything we can do as far as mining, timber harvesting, reducing regulation.”

Allen also vowed to reduce air quality regulation and support the development of new power plants.

“We are going to do everything in our power to get things like the Rogers city power plant built and stop the massive amount of regulation laid out by this current president and his current administration and we will continue to fight for those types of projects.” (It should be noted that no new environmental regulations have been passed since President Obama took office)

The Michigan Public Service Commission and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment recently rejected plans by Wolverine Power Cooperative to build a petroleum coke and coal fired power plant in Rogers City. The regulators said that the plant is not needed and that building it would increase the cost of electricity.

Allen is competing against five other Republicans for the party’s nomination in the August 3 primary.

The other candidates are: Dr. Dan Benishek of Crystal Falls, Linda Goldthorpe of Curtis, Don Hooper of Iron River, Tom Stillings of Torch Lake, and Patrick Donlon of St. Ignace.

Allen is seen as the front runner, and if he managed to beat Democrat State Rep. Gary McDowell and take the seat in the general election, there could be some significant changes in the way the first district is represented.

While Allen says he will fight EPA and state regulators to allow the Kennecott mine, Stupak has warned that the state did not thoroughly review the mine before issuing permits and that the state might not have sufficient resources to provide oversight for the mine.

“I am not opposed to mining. I remain very supportive of mining in the U.P. However, these permits represent the first time the state is allowing sulfide mining. State officials must take their time and make sure sulfide mining is safe. It is critical that comprehensive independent studies be completed before additional permits are issued. Once permitted, I am fearful as many as six additional sulfide mines will be allowed to operate on the shores of the Great Lakes, jeopardizing the world’s largest body of fresh water.”

“The Kennecott Company has yet to prove the sulfide mine will not degrade the community, watershed, air quality or ecology of the area,“ Stupak said. “I will continue to urge EPA and DNR to thoroughly review this proposed sulfide mine.”

Allen’s discussion of environmental issues contrasts with the approach taken by Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder, who also spoke at the Antrim County Republican event.

A former trustee of the Nature Conservancy, Synder has said that as governor he will increase the resources available to state environmental regulators.

Synder said that Michigan must preserve its environment so that people will want to live here.

“I tell people I am a good green Republican. We need to work on getting people to look at environmental issues in a different context than they traditionally have,“ he said. “Too often people say there are environmental things and then there are economic things. I disagree with anyone who takes that position. In my view they are absolutely intertwined.”

“Quality of place” is essential to retaining and attracting young people, he said, “and a key part of quality of place is a thriving sustainable environment.”

“We as a party need to get our act together .”

BP Regulatory Issues:  http://www.adn.com/2010/06/26/1342800/bp-helped-state-investigate-itself.html

Civil disobedience, ‘Yooper’ style has lengthy history

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By John Saari

June 13, 2010

Civil disobedience is commonly associated with historical struggles for basic human rights, a citizen recourse in situations where government has gone badly off course.

After Cynthia Pryor’s arrest near Eagle Rock, it is not surprising that some have linked her name with Rosa Parks, a notable civil rights era personality. Both openly refused to give up a seat, one on a segregated public bus, the other on a stump on contested public land.

But there is a home-grown tradition of civil disobedience in the Upper Peninsula that is perhaps more fitting as a comparison than the epic struggles over basic human rights. That is the tradition of standing up for one’s rights on the land, often in hidden resistance to authority.

Residents resent being told by the state, or any other outsider, what they can or cannot do, if their actions seem reasonable in their own eyes. Poaching game during hard times is a U.P. tradition tolerated in public opinion when tied to family and personal subsistence. My Uncle Vernon (Ironwood-Hurley) helped support his family during the Depression years by catching brook trout. Nothing went to waste, but he observed no creel limits. The illegal shooting of wolves today is another sign of a backwoods ethic that short-circuits the law.

Some hunters have taken the law into their own hands, convinced that wolves are killing “their” deer, or are a danger to children, pets or domestic animals. A conspiracy of silence seals lips, and this silence in itself is a type of resistance to state authority.

The 1980s and 1990s saw a strong push for landowner’s rights, sometimes called the property rights movement. Signs appeared in the backwoods of the western U.P.: “DNR KEEP OUT.” Some people resented, and resisted, DNR/DEQ restrictions on land use and resource management.

Richard Delene (Baraga) was perhaps the most notorious case. He was prosecuted and eventually banned from Michigan for contempt of court after controversial dredging and ditching on his Baraga Plains land. Many felt he did not get a fair hearing.

Customary road access on private lands has become a big current issue, as metal gates sprout up everywhere. New second home owners, often city folk from downstate or out-of-state, bring their urban values and fears with them. It’s the fence-me-in fence-you-out mentality. Vandalism of gates, signs, and property is not uncommon.

When Kennecott/ Rio Tinto began putting up fences on public land with “No Trespassing” signs, a shock of finality hit many mine opponents. Cynthia Pryor’s arrest for stubbornly sitting on a stump was a catalyst for a deeper emotional reaction: This is wrong. Tracts of public land should not be locked away for decades for private profit.

The recent Native American encampment on Eagle Rock lies within this Yooper tradition of civil disobedience over land rights. Treaties with the U.S. government in the nineteenth century secured them the right to hunt, gather and fish in the ceded territories.

Some of them have chosen to stand by their rights on these lands, in the face of controversial efforts by the state of Michigan and an international corporation to diminish those rights.

While Kennecott/Rio Tinto seemed prepared to negotiate some limited Native access to Eagle Rock as a religious site, the company’s bottom line was to secure its own access, by armed state police if necessary, to Eagle Rock as the mine portal.

Despite the fences, the signs and the bulldozed encampment, Eagle Rock will continue to be a place of resistance, symbolic or otherwise, to this mine. From a legal perspective, the protestors may seem to be in the wrong, however peaceful their stance. But in their guts many U.P. residents will understand where Cynthia Pryor and Charlotte Loonsfoot are coming from in this unequal face-off with corporate and state power.

They are standing by their land, whether it is public land or ceded territory, come what may.

Note:  Jon Saari is president of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition and a member of Save the Wild U.P.

UP mine threatens sacred tribal rights

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Posted April 11, 2010

Detroit Free Press: Commentary

BY JESSICA L. KOSKI

For far too long, the voices of affected and concerned Ojibwa people have been ignored in the midst of Kennecott’s proposed Eagle Mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

I am a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and we did not invite Kennecott, a subsidiary of multinational mining giant Rio Tinto, to come into our ceded homelands and reservation territory to explore for minerals, blast into our sacred site, and leave behind a dying legacy of colonialism.

Indigenous peoples throughout the world are on the front lines of similar pressures to develop resources within their homelands, with little regard for their aboriginal rights. There is little mainstream media attention bringing awareness to these issues, despite a global movement for indigenous rights and numerous case studies on the impacts of mining and other extractive industries on indigenous communities.

In addition to the proposed Eagle Mine, Rio Tinto’s intentions to open up six additional mine sites, and increasing mineral exploration throughout the entire Lake Superior basin, are threatening Ojibwa treaty rights. Through treaties with the federal government, Ojibwa leaders ensured permanent reservations and retained rights to hunt, fish and gather on ceded lands. If the water and land are polluted from harmful mining, how will our treaty rights and cultural values be honored and continue into the future?

Under Michigan law, a mining permit applicant must demonstrate that a mine will not pollute, impair or destroy natural re-sources. Unfortunately, Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (now folded into the Department of Natural Resources and Environment) failed to place the burden of proof on Kennecott to prove that it can mine safely.

There is no example of a successful sulfide mine with similar design and location as Kennecott proposes. The potential for mine collapse and irreversible acid mine drainage makes the proposed Eagle Mine especially controversial due to its location within a delicate watershed and underneath the Salmon Trout River, which flows directly into Lake Superior.

A sacred site to the Ojibwa people, Eagle Rock, stands at the heart of resistance as Kennecott’s proposed mine portal. On Aug. 19 last year, Administrative Law Judge Richard A. Patterson recommended that Eagle Rock be protected as a place of worship. However, Steven Chester, the previous director of the DEQ, ignored this recommendation and approved Kennecott’s mining permit on Jan. 14. Chester alleged that Eagle Rock is not legally a place of worship because it does not consist of any built structures, which is rooted in his subjective understanding regarding a place of worship. This is ethnic discrimination in the enforcement of Michigan’s environmental policies.

These issues demand national attention and the mobilization of citizens and leaders before Kennecott continues to assert its ability to move full force ahead despite an appeals process and without approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. The EPA should be obligated to protect sensitive areas of national significance like the Great Lakes.

The protection of Eagle Rock should also be enforced under the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. Furthermore, we need stronger laws specifically dedicated to the conservation of Native American sacred places. We cannot stand to lose the places that reinforce our relationship to the sacredness of Mother Earth and our identity as a people.

Jessica L. Koski of Baraga is a graduate of Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College and Michigan Technological University. She is currently working on a master’s degree at Yale University.