Mining firm drops out after Wisconsin bill rejected

March 6, 2012

Madison – The state Senate rejected mining legislation on Tuesday, prompting a prominent mining company to say it was abandoning a project after months of often bitter debate that pitted conflicting claims of economic development against environmental protection.

“Senate rejection of the mining reforms . . . sends a clear message that Wisconsin will not welcome iron mining. We get the message,” said a statement from Bill Williams, president of Gogebic Taconite LLC. “(We are) ending plans to invest in a Wisconsin mine.” Continue reading

Detroit Free Press 2-part article on U.P Mining

U.P. mines seeing a resurgence as companies hope to cash in

Ruins of the old Quincy Mine in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011. The Quincy Mining Company was established in 1848, and the city of Hancock developed adter the arrival of  the miners. Copper mining operations stopped in 1945.
Ruins of the old Quincy Mine in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011. The Quincy Mining Company was established in 1848, and the city of Hancock developed adter the arrival of the miners. Copper mining operations stopped in 1945.

By Tina Lam

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

PHOTO’s by SUSAN TUSA/Detroit Free Press

It's estimated the Eagle Mine in the U.P. will start extracting nickel and copper in 2013.

It’s estimated the Eagle Mine in the U.P. will start extracting nickel and copper in 2013.
Environmental groups are concerned about the effect mining could have on the Upper Peninsula's abundant nature. They say the state has too few resources to be a proper watchdog. Still, struggling towns view the mines as an answer to their prayers, bringing in much-needed jobs and tax revenue.
Environmental groups are concerned about the effect mining could have on the Upper Peninsula’s abundant nature. They say the state has too few resources to be a proper watchdog. Still, struggling towns view the mines as an answer to their prayers, bringing in much-needed jobs and tax revenue.

Modern uses for some of the metals to be mined in the U.P.

Nickel: Added to stainless steel to prevent corrosion, so it’s found in stainless steel kitchen appliances and pots and pans. Also found in surgical stainless steel, which is easily sterilized, used for medical instruments, some bone implants and body piercing. Used in coins, electronics, rechargeable batteries for laptops and cell phones, and some hybrid car batteries.

Copper: Used in wiring and plumbing. Essential component of the motors, wiring, radiators, connectors, brakes and bearings in cars and trucks. Added to brass to make doorknobs germ-resistant. Coating for U.S. pennies.

Gold: Eighty percent is used in jewelry. Also used as bullion and coins, and in small amounts in computers, cell phones, calculators, GPS devices and televisions.

Silver: Used in jewelry, silverware, photography and coins. Silver ions are used in water purification because they retard the growth of bacteria and algae.

NEW MINES FOR THE UPPER PENINSULA:

Mine: EAGLE

Location: south of Big Bay, central UP

Owner: Rio Tinto and its wholly owned subsidiary, Kennecott Eagle Minerals

Permit: Applied 2006, granted 2007, mine permits have survived two legal challenges

Metals: Nickel, copper

Jobs: 220, including mill

Operation: Mine is under construction, expected to open 2014

Other: Company plans to reopen abandoned Humboldt Mill about 30 miles away to process ore

Mine: COPPERWOOD

Location: north of Wakefield, far western UP

Owner: Orvana Minerals Corp.

Permit: Applied Sept. 2011, company expects permit spring 2012

Metals: Copper, silver

Jobs: 250

Other: Ore is in rock with less sulfide than the other two mines, making it less risky for sulfuric acid drainage

Mine: BACK FORTY

Location: west of Stephenson, southern UP

Owners: 51% HudBay Minerals, 49% Aquila Resources

Permit: Expect to apply June 2012

Metals: Gold, silver, zinc, copper

Jobs: 230

Other: Open pit mine, next to Menominee River

The entrance to the Eagle Mine in Michigamme Township goes under Eagle Rock, rather than through it. Environmental groups and some residents of the towns near new mines are worried about noise, truck traffic, new roads, new power lines and contaminated air and water. / November photos by SUSAN TUSA/Detroit Free Press
Mine president Adam Burley said because Eagle — the nation’s first primary nickel mine — is the first new mine in the U.P. in decades, he wants to make it a model for others. “We’re raising the bar,” he said.
Kristi Mills, director of Save the Wild UP, with son Thomas Kinjorski, said the Department of Environmental Quality’s staff and budget have been gutted. The group is concerned about contamination.

First of 2 parts | Part 2

BIG BAY — In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it’s drill, baby, drill.

The drilling that began there in September is not for oil, but for gold, silver, copper and nickel.

In a resurgence of mining in the region whose mineral heyday was more than a century ago, foreign companies are finding rich bodies of ore they hope to mine for billions of dollars.

New technology and higher prices for metals are making mining profitable again, spurred by increases in demand for high-tech gadgets such as smartphones, kitchens full of stainless steel appliances and hybrid cars — all of which use the metals that can be found in the U.P.

Three new mines are either under way or planned, with more possible. Also, an abandoned mill to process ore is expected to reopen. Mineral rights on more than 1 million of the U.P.’s 7 million acres have been leased by companies prospecting for metals.

The new mines are less than a football field away from streams, rivers or Lake Superior, and environmental groups say the risks of contamination from acidic rock waste are high and that the state has too few resources to be a proper watchdog.

“I’m not anti-mine, I’m anti-mining pollution,” said Marla Tuinstra, a writer and retired dairy farmer near Stephenson, where an open pit gold mine is planned.

For struggling towns hungry for tax revenue and jobs, the mines are an answer to their prayers.

John Cox is supervisor of Wakefield Township, where a new copper mine is planned not far from the White Pine Mine, which closed 15 years ago.

“This is the best news we’ve had for years,” he said.

Rush is on as mining firms scour U.P. for deposits

Coming Monday: Is the state making enough money from these mines?

BIG BAY — The scream of hydraulic drills against bare rock echoes through the underground tunnel in the Eagle Mine. Dark figures are silhouetted against daylight at the tunnel’s entrance.

For international mining giant Rio Tinto, that light is symbolic: It’s the end of a 10-year push to start the mine — the nation’s first primary nickel mine and the first new mine in the Upper Peninsula in decades.

With its tunnel growing deeper at the rate of 12 feet per day, a Lansing judge on Wednesday cleared the mine’s path completely, dismissing a lawsuit that challenged its permits.

Other mining firms see Eagle’s start as a signal to push forward. Orvana Minerals, based in Toronto, has submitted a permit application for Copperwood, an underground copper mine near Wakefield in the U.P. And a third firm is preparing its application for Back Forty, an open pit gold, zinc and copper mine near Stephenson.

The rush is on.

Search for minerals

Websites of companies exploring for minerals show maps of the U.P. dotted with drilling targets. “Great Lakes: unparalleled potential,” says the map from Aquila Resources, a company listed on the Toronto stock exchange that discovered gold and copper in Menominee County. Its map shows four other sites it is targeting in the U.P.

Kennecott Eagle Minerals, the Rio Tinto subsidiary that discovered the rich copper-nickel deposit near Big Bay in 2002, said it’s continuing intensive exploration in the central and western U.P. Prime Meridian Resources of Calgary, Alberta, is hunting for copper, gold and nickel.

Bitterroot Resources of Vancouver, British Columbia, says it has mineral rights across 363 square miles in the U.P. and is scouting copper, nickel and platinum. Other firms have told the state they’re seeking uranium.

It’s not just Michigan: Companies also are planning mines in Ontario, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“It’s like looking for elephants,” said Ted Bornhorst, professor of economic and engineering geology at Michigan Technological University in Houghton. “If you see one, you may find more.”

The state, excited about the prospect of new mining in the U.P., has set up an interdepartmental team to deal with issues surrounding mines.

“We see this as major economic development needed in the U.P.,” said Dan Wyant, director of the Department of Environmental Quality.

He said the state expects to see more than the three mines already proposed.

“The governor is very open to this, as long as we can make sure the companies meet requirements for air and water quality,” Wyant said.

He noted that new technology has changed mining. “It’s a different day and a different time,” he said.

All three companies said they will have modern water treatment plants that will make water discharged from the mining process cleaner than rain, which has contaminants deposited from air pollution. State law requires the new mine sites to be restored, with the buildings gone, pits and tunnels filled and flooded, and trees and shrubs planted when the mine shuts down.

Environmental concerns

Environmental groups and some residents of the towns near the new mines are worried about noise, truck traffic, new roads, new power lines and contaminated air and water. The new mines are in sulfide rock; its tailings contain sulfur that can create sulfuric acid when exposed to air and moisture. Critics say the state has suffered such deep budget cuts that it doesn’t have the funds or staff to do a good job protecting the environment. They also say the DEQ has become a booster rather than a watchdog over mines.

The Eagle Mine will be beneath the Salmon Trout River, which flows into Lake Superior; Back Forty is a few hundred feet from the Menominee River, and the Copperwood Mine is 200 feet from Lake Superior. Hunting, fishing, canoeing and hiking are popular in all three areas, and groups such as Save the Wild UP are concerned they’ll be contaminated by mine drainage.

The DEQ’s staff and budget have been gutted in recent years, said Kristi Mills, director of Save the Wild UP. The DEQ has only two staff members in the U.P. to oversee two existing iron mines, the three future mines and exploratory drilling.

Former director Steve Chester told the Free Press in 2010 that the agency’s general fund budget was cut 75% between 2003 and 2010.

Wyant said some staff in Lansing also work on mine issues, and that its resources are sufficient.

But Michelle Halley, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, which has challenged the Eagle permits in court, said the new mines, both in Michigan and elsewhere, will affect water quality in the Great Lakes Basin, not just the U.P.

She also said Michigan’s mining law places no restrictions on where mining can occur. “Every square inch is open.”

Bringing in the jobs

Mills of Save the Wild UP said the issue right now is jobs.

“It’s bad timing,” she said.

Not only does Rio Tinto intend to hire 300 people at Eagle, it also plans to reopen a mill to process its rock, and possibly that of other future mines. The Humboldt Mill hasn’t operated since 1989 and it, too, will bring jobs.

Dan Hornbogen is one of eight generations that lives, or have lived, in Marquette. He has served on an advisory committee to the company and is among the mine’s avid supporters.

“There are no guarantees, but these people know what they’re doing,” he said.

Jon Saari of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition doubts the mine can avoid polluting air and water.

“There is human hubris here,” he said.

A coalition of environmental groups and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community had argued in court documents that a long list of problems with the Eagle Mine should have led the state to reject its permits, including a potentially unstable roof and environmental studies that were flawed or not done. The judge in the case disagreed and dismissed their lawsuit.

On a tour of the mine site, Kristin Mariuzza, environmental manager of the mine, points out the multiple water treatment systems proudly. A former DEQ employee and U.P. native, she said the $10-million system will make water from the mine site cleaner than what most people drink.

“We treat it more,” she said. The water must be clean enough to protect fish in nearby streams under state law.

Mine president Adam Burley said because Eagle is the first new mine in the U.P. in decades, he wants to make it a model for others. “We’re raising the bar,” he said.

A crown jewel?

HudBay Minerals of Toronto and partner Aquila Resources call their planned Back Forty Mine a “crown jewel,” with nearly 1 million ounces of gold and 1 billion pounds of copper, as well as other metals.

To Ron and Carol Henriksen, it’s no jewel. The couple created their retirement dream home on 6 acres along the shores of the Menominee River west of Stephenson. But after mining rigs began drilling exploratory holes down the road, they decided to sell to the mining company and have yet to find a new home.

Their property and many of those around it are marked with red anti-mine signs, and the Henriksens are active in Front 40, a group formed to encourage locals to ask tough questions about the Back Forty mine.

“If people understand the facts, they won’t be for it,” Ron Henriksen said.

The 250 jobs generated by the mine will last only nine years — the mine’s expected life — but the effects on hunting, fishing and recreational tourism could be long-lasting, Henriksen said.

“I don’t want my grandchildren saying to me, ‘Why did you let this happen?’ ” he said.

Some fear the mine will drive down property values. And the mine’s owners are Canadian companies, so even if 75% of jobs go to locals as promised, the profits will go back to Canada.

Cyanide will be used in the processing of the mine rock, and the Front 40 said it fears that could contaminate the Menominee River and create hazards when it’s transported to the site.

Mine spokesman Tom Shields said the cyanide will be used only in processing gold and silver and will be neutralized afterward.

Area residents have mixed opinions.

Jeff Anderson is a financial adviser and stock broker who has sold thousands of shares in HudBay. He sees it as a good investment, both for individuals and for the community, where he has lived for decades and is on the Downtown Development Authority board.

“What we have is an opportunity for higher economic development and better-paying jobs,” he said. Besides direct jobs, the mine is expected to create 220 support jobs, he said. “Higher wages and jobs could have a good impact,” he said.

He said he’s convinced, after a recent forum, that the DEQ will do a good job overseeing environmental risks.

Mick Lawler is project manager for HudBay. He said he’s confident the company can avoid the pollution opponents fear. The firm plans to build a concrete pillar between the mine and the river, treat water that is used in the mining process or falls on the site, and neutralize and bury rock waste in the mine pit, flooding it with water when the mine shuts down.

The company hopes to apply for a permit next June.

“I don’t know who to believe,” said Robin Leaveck, who works at her parents’ Stephenson Family Restaurant and grew up in the area. On one hand, the metals are needed for cars, electronic gadgets and wiring. On the other, “this is God’s country,” she said. “I hope they can do it without destroying it.”

‘Now we struggle’

Even with a rebirth in mining, the U.P. won’t see thousands of mining jobs from these projects. The numbers will be in the low hundreds at each mine, and the mines will be short-lived, open for at most a dozen years.

But the boost to small, hard-hit local economies will be impressive.

Wakefield Township Supervisor John Cox grew up in the area but left as a young man to get a good job and returned as a retiree.

“A lot of kids here have to leave like I did,” he said.

The proposed Copperwood Mine, which expects to get a state permit by next spring, will bring up to 250 jobs when it opens. “We’ve had unemployment over 10% for a long, long time,” and it’s even higher in neighboring Ontonagon, he said.

In the iron mining days, the area had swimming pools, community centers, good paved roads and other things small communities often don’t have. But those days ended when the White Pine Mine closed in 1995.

“Now we struggle,” he said.

Bornhorst, the Michigan Tech professor, said that because the U.S. is capable of protecting its environment, it should have mines that produce metals its citizens use, rather than sticking other countries with the risks.

“People don’t want copper mines in their backyard, but they’ll go down to Lowe’s to buy copper wire,” he said. “We’re the ones that use these metals the most. We should have the mines.”

Contact Tina Lam: 313-222-6421 or tlam@freepress.com

Part 2:   Will mines get state’s riches for a paltry sum?     by staff writer Tina Lam   http://www.freep.com/article/20111128/NEWS05/111280328/Will-mines-get-state-s-riches-paltry-sum-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Mines begin digging into U.P. free of key state tax

Mines begin digging into U.P. free of key state tax

01 November 2011

SEVERED FROM TAX: The Kennecott Eagle Mine near Marquette could generate as much $5 billion in nickel and copper — resources that would not fall under Michigan’s current severance tax for natural resources. (Courtesy photo)

In September, after years of heated debate and legal battles, Kennecott Eagle Minerals began blasting into the ground at its controversial nickel mine near Marquette.

The company, a subsidiary of London-based mining giant Rio Tinto, believes the Eagle mine will yield 300 million pounds of nickel and 250 million pounds of copper. Kennecott is one of several foreign firms pursuing what are believed to be large deposits of nickel, gold and other valuable metals found in bedrock underlying the western Upper Peninsula.

Those deposits could be worth billions of dollars, but the companies that extract them from the ground won’t pay a penny in severance taxes. By comparison, if Michigan treated the Kennecott mine the way Florida would, the state’s take could reach an additional $400 million.

Continue reading

Eagle Rock: Economics versus spirit of place

By Jon Magnuson ,  The Mining Journal, 9-18-11

This past week The Mining Journal reported as a lead story Inghan County Judge Paula J. M Manderfield’s denial of a request for an injunction to stop Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Minerals Company from dynamiting Eagle Rock, the entrance to the proposed controversial sulfide mine in Powell Township.

Continue reading

Minnesota: Chamber, corporations pursue sulfide mining at cost of degrading Minnesota’s waters

By C.A. Arneson | Monday, Aug. 29, 2011

It was bad enough when the U.S. Supreme Court bestowed corporations with personhood – but under the guise of the title Chamber of Commerce, Minnesota now has its own corporative dictator. And Minnesota’s dictator wants sulfide mining at all costs – including the permanent degradation of Minnesota waters.

Continue reading

Minnesota Letter to the Editor: It’s crazy to damage our watershed

By: Bob Tammen, Duluth Budgeteer News

We care about our watershed. The Lake Superior Watershed Festival brought out hundreds of visitors to Lake Superior College Saturday to learn about threats to Lake Superior. One of the biggest future threats will be copper mining in the Duluth Complex of minerals. Mining promoters have an impressive array of talking points. Unfortunately, they don’t have a scientifically acceptable mining plan.

Polymet’s draft environmental impact statement got the lowest possible rating from the EPA, which issued a letter detailing the Continue reading

Nickel plunging into bear market on biggest glut in 4 years

RIO TINTO’s bad investment in a nickel mine, but Michiganders have the most to loose if the Eagle Mine is built.

Bloomberg News  Jun 13, 2011 – 9:43 AM ET

By Agnieszka Troszkiewicz and Maria Kolesnikova

At a time of scarcity in everything from crude oil to copper to corn, nickel is heading for the biggest glut in four years, driving prices lower into 2012.

Next year’s surplus will rise to 60,000 metric tonnes from 12,000 tonnes in 2011, making nickel the most oversupplied metal relative to output or use, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the most-accurate forecaster tracked by Bloomberg over two years. New mines will boost supply 11% in 2012, the most in 17 years, Macquarie Group Ltd. says. Prices may drop 12% to US$20,000 a ton by Dec. 31, the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 17 analysts and traders shows.

“I’m not particularly optimistic about nickel,” said Ian Henderson, who manages about US$10 billion of natural-resource assets at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in London, including the Global Natural Resources Fund, which doubled in two years. “I don’t think there is a commercial logic for the price where it is today. A nickel price of US$15,000 is entirely possible.”

While raw-material producers are failing to extract enough copper and oil and droughts threaten crops, nickel supply is expanding faster than demand. Prices reached a record US$51,800 in 2007 and moved at least 63% a year since then, leading consumers to use more substitutes than in any other major commodity, Macquarie says. Ikea Group, the world’s largest home- furnishings retailer, is removing the metal from kitchen and bathroom products.

Used mostly in stainless steel, nickel fell 8.5% to US$22,648 this year by 6:56 a.m. on the London Metal Exchange, making it the third-worst performer after raw sugar and zinc on the Standard & Poor’s GSCI index of 24 commodities, which advanced 11%. The MSCI All-Country World Index of equities is little changed and Treasuries returned 3.1%, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch index shows.

Construction and transport account for 37% of nickel demand, with another 18% used in machinery and electrical applications, according to UBS AG. Consumption of 1.51 million tons in 2010 was worth US$33 billion at last year’s average price.

Declining prices mean profit at OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the world’s biggest producer, will probably be little changed this year, Chief Executive Officer Vladimir Strzhalkovsky said in an interview June 8. Nickel accounted for about 43% of the Moscow-based company’s 2009 sales.

“If there is a glitch in the global economy, demand for industrial metals will go down,” he said. “It’s dangerous to depend on nickel.”

Winning Streak

The bear market ends a two-year winning streak when prices more than doubled. As demand rebounded from the worst global recession since World War II, supply was curbed by strikes of a year or more at Vale SA’s Sudbury and Voisey’s Bay mines in Canada. The disputes have ended and the Rio De Janeiro-based company predicts a 56% production gain this year.

Lower prices may force higher-cost smelters to curb or halt output, limiting declines. China is the world’s biggest nickel producer. The nation’s least-efficient makers of nickel pig iron, a cheaper alternative to refined nickel, need about US$20,000 a ton to break even, according to Societe Generale SA. Reduced demand from stainless steelmakers and rising energy costs make it more likely that privately owned smelters will shut in the second half of 2011, the bank said in a report.

Chinese imports of nickel ore rose 29% in March from a year earlier and 33% in April, spurring analysts to anticipate a similar increase in the country’s production. Those assumptions could be wrong because the ore may be of a lower grade, reducing the amount of metal that can be extracted and curbing the pace of production growth, Societe Generale said in a report June 3.

Mining costs are surging. The cost of everything from wages to energy to changes in exchange rates rose a combined 25% in Canada, 18% in Australia and 12% in Russia last year, according to UBS.

Prices were partly supported this year by a 17% decline in stockpiles monitored by the LME. With Barclays Capital predicting that the market will move into a supply surplus in the third quarter, that trend in inventory may reverse.

The surplus in aluminum will narrow to 301,000 tons this year, from 609,000 tons in 2010, Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates. Prices for the metal used in aircraft and cars rose 6% this year on the LME. The glut in zinc will drop to 11,000 tons from 675,000 tons, the bank forecasts. Zinc retreated 8.1% in London since the start of January.

Production of copper will fall 380,000 tons short of demand in 2011, compared with a 108,000-ton deficit in 2010, Bank of America Merrill Lynch says. Prices declined 6.9% this year. Lead, which declined 0.2% since Dec. 31, is moving into a shortfall of 61,000 tons from a surplus of 35,000 tons, the bank predicts. Supply of tin, which fell 5.8% this year, will be 12,000 tons less than demand, the same amount as in 2012, Barclays Capital estimates.

The oil market is using inventory and the spare production capacity of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to meet consumption, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a report May 23. Both will eventually become exhausted, requiring higher prices to restrain demand, the bank said. New York-traded crude oil rose 8.7% this year.

In agriculture, Rabobank International expects supply deficits in corn, soybeans, wheat, coffee, cotton and cocoa in the 2010-2011 or 2011-12 seasons. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI Agriculture Index of eight commodities jumped 73% in the past 12 months.

Nickel supplies are increasing at a time when economic growth is showing signs of weakening. U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said June 7 the recovery remains “uneven” and “frustratingly slow,” three days after the Labor Department reported that employers added the fewest jobs in eight months.

German industrial production fell for the first time in four months in April, the Economy Ministry said June 8. A day earlier, the World Bank cut its 2011 global growth estimate to 3.2% from 3.3%.

While stainless-steel output rose 8.6% to 8.39 million tons in the first quarter, a record for the period, the International Stainless Steel Forum said last month that gains won’t be sustained through the year. The Brussels-based group’s members account for about 75% of global output. Rising production may also mask a swing toward demand for steels containing less nickel or substitution with other materials.

Ikea, based in Stockholm, plans to almost eliminate nickel from its bathroom and kitchen products by August 2012, said Gaetano Ronchi, a senior manager at the company’s purchasing arm. Of the 80,000 tons of stainless steel it uses annually, 88% is now nickel-free, he said.

With nickel accounting for at least half the cost of 300- series stainless steel, the most common type, the retailer is not alone in seeking alternatives. The steel’s market share fell to 56% last year from 72% in 2000, Macquarie estimates.

Nickel demand now is about 20% lower than it would have been if prices hadn’t jumped more than fourfold to the 2007 record in the space of 18 months, according to Jim Lennon, the head of commodities research at Macquarie in London who has been following the market for three decades.

The switch from nickel-bearing stainless steels means less potential to absorb additional supply. Vale will start the furnace at its Copper Cliff plant in Sudbury in June after four months of repairs. Xstrata Plc, based in Zug, Switzerland, reopened its Falcondo plant in the Dominican Republic in the first quarter, having shut it in 2008.

Norilsk resumed production at its Lake Johnston mine in Australia last week, after halting operations in 2009 because of costs. While the company forecasts a 5.9% increase in output this year, it wants to decrease its reliance on nickel in favor of copper, iron ore and coal.

Pacific Metals Co., based in Tokyo, Japan’s largest ferronickel producer, plans to open its Hachinohe plant in June after repairing damage caused by the country’s earthquake in March. Ferronickel contains about 38% nickel and is used by stainless-steel makers as a cheaper alternative to refined metal. New supply is also coming from projects in Brazil owned by Vale and London-based Anglo American Plc.

“Nickel probably has the most bearish outlook of all the metals,” said Michael Widmer, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London. “The thing that saved the market in the last two years was the strike at Vale. Someone will have to cut output, or delay projects.”

What’s the rush on mine permitting?

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.”

Mining giant RIO TINTO meeting review

Related links:

http://londonminingnetwork.org/

 

In a related photo,  Meg Townsend speaks with Tom Albanese and Jan du Plessis after the Rio Tinto AGM during which she spoke and had just presented du Plessis a petition from 200 doctors protesting the Eagle Mine in Michigan. Townsend and her family  have been fighting this mine all her life. She was told that they would begin blasting in a month.

 

On 14 April 2011, London-based Rio Tinto plc held its AGM (annual shareholders’ meeting) in London.

14 April also marked the thirtieth anniversary of the first concerted intervention by “dissident shareholders” in what is now the world’s third most powerful mining company.

In 1981, these shareholders launched the “People against Rio Tinto” (Partizans) campaign. And some of them have attended every AGM since then, bringing with them community representatives and trade unionists from almost every country where the company operates. Collectively they constitute the most consistent corporate lobby of its kind, anywhere in the world. In 2007, Partizans was key to setting up London Mining Network, which co-ordinated activities around this year’s Rio Tinto AGM.

As in previous years, the company’s highly questionable environmental and social record came under concerted attack from campaigners around the world.

Chalid Muhammad, a prominent Green activist from Indonesia, demanded to know why the company had not fulfilled its undertakings to fully compensate local people for human rights abuses and loss of their land at Rio Tinto’s now-closed Kelian gold mine in Kalimantan – all responsibility for which Rio Tinto will relinquish in 2013.

Meg Townsend, who works for a prominent New York law firm, declared the company had failed to observe the religious rights of Native Americans at one of its prospective mine sites in Michigan, USA.

Toxic impacts

Also from North America, Cherise Udell representing “Utah Moms for Clean Air” pointed out that residents of Salt Lake City, and in particular young children, were grievously suffering from toxic emissions at the company’s massive Bingham Canyon copper mine.

Patricia Feeney, director of Oxford-based Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) raised urgent questions about the impacts on water quality of the company’s proposed Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia.

Other questions related to the company’s position on the rights of Indigenous Peoples to withhold their consent for mining projects, including at the Pebble project in Alaska. The issue was also spotlighted in a letter by a leader of the Aboriginal Mirrar people in Australia, who fear for the consequences of the company’s  uranium extraction on their territory – extraction which, they believe, may have helped fuel the Fukushima disaster.

Rio’s empty promises

The question and answer session lasted  two hours – one of the longest since Rio Tinto first became a  “battle ground” between communities and the company in 1981.

Asked for his assessment of who had “won”, and who had “lost” at this year’s AGM, co-founder of Partizans, Roger Moody, said:

“It’s not a case of winning or losing. On the one hand, Rio Tinto has certainly made some concessions to its opponents – for example selling some of its more dubious coal mines.

“On the other hand, the gap between its promises and actual performance is as wide as ever.

“For example, the company says it’s in contact with aggrieved Indonesian communities still suffering from lack of compensation for the impacts of its closed-down Kelian gold mine. But, as Chalid Muhammad pointed out today, their grievances have remained unaddressed for the past couple of years.

“The company says it’s always ready to dialogue with its ‘stakeholders’.  And, one of these stakeholders, Cherise Udell, made a passionate plea on behalf of thousands of children affected by toxic emissions from the company’s Salt Lake copper mine.

“But, when she simply asked for a citizens’ round table meeting with Rio Tinto CEO, Tom Albanese, he ignored her plea.”

“Will it take another thirty years before Rio Tinto is doing what it says it will do?”

Colourful protest

Outside the AGM, Utah Moms for Clean Air led protests against the company. Colourful balloons were burst, each representing a premature death because of air pollution caused by the company’s operations at Salt Lake City. Air pollution in the area causes between 1000 and 2000 premature deaths per year, and Rio Tinto’s Kennecott subsidiary is blamed for 30% of this pollution.

For photographs of the protests and the AGM, see http://londonminingnetwork.org/2011/03/london-events-around-the-rio-tinto-agm/.

For further details and to arrange interviews with visitors from Indonesia and the USA, phone LMN Co-ordinator Richard Solly, 07929 023214.

 

WAVE Group ACTION: Phone the Governor!

APRIL 12 ACTION:

If you can spare a moment this week please make two phone calls for the following reasons:

WAVE wrote a letter to Governor Snyder on March 24 requesting a specific action. It reads,

“…we urge you to use your authority to issue an executive order calling for an immediate halt to activity at the Eagle Mine site until a complete impact study can be prepared by EPA mining experts.  This review should encompass all aspects of the Eagle Project, including mining, transport, and milling of ore, as well as other potential mining projects in the vicinity of the Yellow Dog Plains.”

The Governor has not responded to our letter of request, so it is time to call and email both the Governor’s office and the U.P. office!!!

On the call please ask, “Are you going to issue an executive order or not?? When can we expect a response from the Governor? Has the Governor received the 15,000 signed petitions from citizens across the state in opposition to this project?”

Thanks for taking action! Our U.P.Governor’s representative at the Northern Michigan Office is Greg Andrews, so ask for him specifically.

Read this letter from Jessica to Governor Snyder:  http://keweenawnow.blogspot.com/2011/04/letter-from-jessica-koski-gov-snyder.html

 

Governor Rick Snyder
P.O. Box 30013
Lansing, Michigan 48909PHONE: (517) 373-3400
PHONE: (517) 335-7858 – Constituent Services
FAX:(517) 335-6863
E-MAIL: Rick.Snyder@michigan.gov
Northern Michigan Office
1504 West Washington, Suite B
Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 228-2850   Greg Andrews
Washington D.C. Office
444 N. Capitol Street, Northwest
Hall of the States, Suite 411
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 624-5840

For Immediate Release: March 29, 2011

GOVERNOR ASKED TO HALT ALL ACTIVITY AT EAGLE MINE SITE

Marquette, MI — Representatives of WAVE, a new grassroots environmental coalition, met today with Greg Andrews, Governor Snyder’s Upper Peninsula representative.  They brought a letter to the governor, calling for an immediate halt to construction of the Eagle Mine on the Yellow Dog Plains.

WAVE asks that EPA mining experts prepare an impact study that encompasses all aspects of the Eagle Project, including mining, transport, and milling of ore. WAVE contends that the environmental impact statement funded and prepared by Kennecott Minerals did not meet the requirements of the new law regulating nonferrous metallic sulfide mining in Michigan.

Accompanying the letter were petitions signed by over 15,000 persons, including doctors and health care professionals who oppose development of the mine because of the risks posed to the region’s water resources and to the health of people dependent upon it.

London-based Rio Tinto, aggressively anti-union, is developing the mine under the subsidiary name Kennecott Minerals. Despite numerous pending lawsuits, Kennecott has acquired the necessary permits and may soon begin excavating the mine.  The portal is to be blasted through Migi zii wa sin (Eagle Rock), a Native American sacred site, an act akin to blowing up a church, synagogue or temple to the Ojibwe tribe.

According to WAVE spokesperson Catherine Parker, “The mine puts surface water, ground water and air quality at risk—along with the numerous and permanent jobs that come from the current recreation and tourism businesses.”  She adds that the flawed process demonstrated by the permitting of the Eagle Mine sets a dangerous precedent, especially with the recent increase in mining exploration in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Testimony from doctors and public health professionals makes it clear that health is a key concern, especially for our children, seniors and future generations. To date, the state has chosen to ignore the potential health impact on the region, and WAVE hopes that Governor Snyder will change that.

They are requesting an in-person meeting with Governor Snyder to discuss their concerns.

Parker explained that the choice facing the Governor—whether to halt the mine’s development or allow the portal to be blasted—will impact the health of people in the Upper Great Lakes Region. She continued, “This is Governor Snyder’s opportunity to take a long term view of what is best for Michigan’s citizens and not jump at the fast money and short term economic gain represented by the Eagle Mine’s development.”

WAVE is a new grassroots coalition of individuals and representatives of environmental, health, and citizen groups around the Great Lakes Region.  Its mission is to protect our water resources as part of a sustainable future.

Contact:  Catherine Parker

Phone:     (906) 662-9987

Email:   waveactions@gmail.com

3.29.11 Press Release-Governor

Governor Rick Snyder–FINAL 1 3-23-11-2