Please join members of our community on Monday, December 17 to show our disappointment and opposition to the DEQ’s approval of some of the required permits for Kennecott’s proposed metallic sulfide mine.The rally will start at noon on Monday and we will be meeting in front of the Marquette Post Office. Hope to see you there and dress warm!
If you do not live in the Marquette area, consider showing your opposition to the proposed Kennecott project in your neighborhood. Put a sign in your yard, get a group of people together in your city center, or write a letter to the editor!
Thank you for all of your effort!
It ain’t over til’ its over!
How can you approve something which ends do not balance for the means? How can you approve of something that ultimately does more harm than good? We NEED to start looking at the long term solutions rather then short term, after all the majority of us are going to be on the earth to experience the bad long term effects and I know that I am not the only one who is for the preservation of our home, earth.
Friday, Dec. 14, 2007 – a day that will live in infamy in the U.P. – the day the state’s top environmental watchdog agency sold out its most pristine lands – as the opening of this sulfide mine will surely lead to similar proposals – and even uranium mining in our back yard.
I applaud the efforts of Save the Wild UP and other groups opposing this terrible “acid mine.”
Sadly, I am afraid the Michigan DNR will rubberstamp the project likes its sister the MDEQ – but I still hold out hope the EPA will not sell out the U.P.
It’s sad that Governor Granholm has not actively opposed this mine.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Hey count on support from me but I was wondering so we have to have a permit to show a sign? Also for those of us with bad backs who can’t stand for a long time… are we able to bring chairs? Asking, never been to one of these before.
I’m sickened & disgusted that, again, “our” government officials are ignoring the appeals of the citizenry to cave to the dollar, the temporary dollar, earned by despoiling & maybe ruining a large part of what makes the UP special to its inhabitants & to the thousands of others that come here annually, making tourism a growing UP industry to “harvest” the way deer are ‘harvested.’
The world requires a source of nickel but no doubt, one day a safe way to remove it will be found that won’t put local homes, the air, waterways & Lake Superior at risk. Why not? There’s a man on the moon, which most doubted could ever happen. Kennecott, a foreign firm, has an unbroken record of leaving wreckage in its wake. Kennecott is not the company to attempt mining in the gorgeous, healthy Yellow Dog Plain beneath the healthy, vital Salmon-Trout River.
Mining provided jobs in the UP but was destructive to the environment & reckless with lives of the miners & health & welfare of their families, & it was investors in Boston who became rich. The paternalistic companies left when mining was no longer economically profitable but their pollution remained in rivers & lakes in Copper Country & still remains where tax money has not yet remediated super-fund sites. Marquette-area mining has gone on for generations, providing an important number of jobs. The company makes well-publicized bequests to students & local organizations & otherwise works to appear a good citizen. Occasionally local news mentions blowing mining dust dirtying some homes, cars, presumably getting into lungs. We hear little more than that about any problems in local news. This doesn’t convince me that UP residents should accept sulfide mining by a company like Kennecott the way Kennecott would mine in 2008, in an area that is valued & valuable as it is, now that we know better. The newer mining law remains too vague, leaving far too much to interpretaton regarding environmental safety, transportation of ore & clean-up at end of the project. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Sunday Waldon
Marquette
ANY mining in the Yellow Dog plains area would be an ENVIRONMENTAL ATROCITY! Any public official or public employee who abets such an atrocity should be voted out of office or fired. If such an atrocity is presently legal, obviously the state legislature must IMMEDIATELY vote to outlaw it. The DEQ decision is shameful, irresponsible and positively idiotic for a state department.
Kimberley, you can bring a chair or take breaks in Baby Cakes to warm up or rest your back. Do what you have to do to be comfortable, just showing up for whatever amount of time you can will be helpful. See you there.
Teresa
SWUP Outreach Coordinator
Kennecott’s only selling focus to the citizens of the UP has been pointing out that they want to ”get the people up here to work” – that big ‘100 jobs’ Cherry is yapping about is the only positive thing I hear him pushing in the advertisements on TV – obviously because there are no other benefits. Oh sure, the state of Michigan will get about $55,000 per year that noone up here will see – but Kennecott is walking to the Bank of England with atleast 5 Billion over the course of the mines’ life span.
Noone at the DEQ and most likely the DNR is looking at the big picture. People who are adamently against this mine are planning on leaving the UP – I know 2 families myself who don’t care if the mine pollutes or not -they just feel betrayed by the government in Michigan – and they know others, so there goes local consumers. If the mine has adverse effects on the environment, tourism will suffer, who’s going to want to vacation in a sulfuric acid cloud, businesses will leave and a heck of a lot more than 100 people will be out of work not to mention the environmental effects. The trickle-down effect could be disasterous for the entire economy of the U.P. Noone wants to see families out of work and suffering, but way too much focus is being placed on a few jobs[which most likely will not end up being 100 anyway because we all know Kennecott lied about that in Wisconsin] and not enough focus is being placed on the longterm effects of this disaster-waiting-to-happen.
It sickens me. Where is our Governer who comes up here and pretends to be so gungho about protecting our pristine wilderness. She could put a stop to it.
THANK-YOU to all the organizations who are standing up to fight for the U.P. and to all the citizens who are backing them. I pray every night that there is enough strength in our numbers to win this fight.
When will we realize we can’t eat, (or drink), money? All this is is a get rich quick, no matter the cost, for yet another money hungry corporation with no regard for humanity and the devastation that will be left for generations to come.