Kennecott’s latest low flying air surveys in which project manager Jon Cherry describes as “similar to an MRI” is yet another appalling display of this company’s arrogance and power. Another example is the contractual manipulation of our local electric co-op into a multi-million dollar commitment to carry a heavy power line through rural Powell and Champion Townships to feed their proposed nickel mine.  A glutted list of promised contracts with area businesses, ample donations to local charities and organizations, misleading relationships with township and county governments, and a total disregard of public outcry against their proposed industrial development of the Yellow Dog Plains round out their resume. The real MRI has been performed on our own Department of Environmental Quality and DNR, where Kennecott has been able to clearly define and attack the weaknesses of this inadequate state agency.

We are awaiting the outcome of the ongoing downstate contested case hearing.  IF the ruling is in favor of Kennecott’s permits, we can expect a loud announcement from the company, “full steam ahead!!” Citizens need to know that metallic sulfide mining in the UP is NOT a Done Deal!  Aside from Kennecott not having earned the social license to carry on their business here, there are many factors to consider.  Win or lose, either side of the contested case has the opportunity to appeal. This could take months, even years to legally process. Also, the EPA must review the controversial water discharge permit and allow comment at public hearings. Transportation issues, what little is known, do not meet the approval of local residents. The Coaster Brook Trout Federally Endangered Species determination has yet to be reviewed. Agencies and citizens are finally realizing that our fresh water resources have intrinsic as well as monetary value and needs strict protection.

Kennecott’s high-dollar media campaigns exemplify the company as a good neighbor and deliver a direct MRI into public consciousness.  Mining companies will always outspend their opposition to inject their ‘good buddy’ message into the innocent public. If each one of us who opposes metallic sulfide mining in Michigan would incite 25 friends, relatives and visitors about this issue, a new consciousness would emerge and the power shift could return to citizens where it belongs. Join us in spreading the news about Kennecott: Stuck in the Mud! This is not a done deal as they would like us all to believe.

Examples where mines have been halted or stopped

1. Esquel, Argentina: A recent Supreme Court decision in Argentina upheld the rights of provinces to locally regulate and restrict activities. Minera El Desquite, despite their public relations strategies, remains blocked by citizen-influenced Chubut laws prohibiting open pit metal mining and the use of cyanide.

2. Mendoza, Argentina: The province’s parliament voted to suspend open-pit metals mining indefinitely because the local government had failed to meet a 30-day deadline to draw up a plan to safeguard the environment from mining projects. The ban will last until an environmental plan is in place.

3. Cerro Quilish Mountain, Peru: However, when the Newmont Mining Corporation decided to expand their Yanacocha gold mine the Peruvian government ruled in the company’s favor and allowed Newmont to explore the mountain. Almost immediately after Newmont began drilling, on September 2, 2004, citizens organized to protest the desecration of their sacred mountain and strategically placed boulders and vehicles to blockade the Yanacocha Mine. Despite public outcry, Newmont kept the mining operations up and running; the company used helicopters to get workers to the mine site (Earth Island Institute, 2008). After two weeks, nearly 10,000 people gathered to protest the project (Earth Island Institute, 2008). On September 15, 2004 a regional strike and street demonstration caught the Peruvian government and Newmont’s attention. Newmont was forced to sign an accord and agreed to leave the sacred mountain.

4. Ottawa Valley/Kingston: A non-native coalition joined a peaceful protest that had been set up by the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation and the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation on June 28th, 2007. Tribal leaders Paula Sherman and Bob Lovelace were fined and sentenced. Lovelace is currently jailed. In February, the Ottawa city council passed a resolution (18-1) to urge Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty, to temporarily ban uranium prospecting, exploration and mining in eastern Ontario and the Ottawa River watershed and to conduct a public review of the 1990 Ontario Mining Act.

5. Crandon, Wisconsin: A nearly 30-year battle to stop a proposed metallic sulfide mine, near the Mole Lake Reservation and on ceded territory lands, ended when the Mole Lake Chippewa bought the land and its mineral rights in November, 2006.

6. Costa Rica: The country outlawed all new open-pit mining operations, in 2002.

7. Rosia Montana: Gabriel Resources and the Government of Romania have attempted opening a cyanide gold mine that would affect ancient cemetaries and historical artifacts, as well as requiring an entire town to relocate. Recently, the Romanian Government re-enforced its position in support of a new law proposal to ban cyanide: “We have to say very clearly: if we start to close the existing mines and rehabilitate the affected areas then this will create many jobs in Romania and the Government supports this approach.” The licensing procedure for the project has been stopped for an unlimited period by the Ministry for the Environment and Sustainable Development.

8. Irian Jaya (West Papua): Even with military opposition, residents have stopped production at the Rio Tinto/Freeport McMoRan Grasberg Mine, although the mine continues to operate. Rio Tinto is currently involved in a US lawsuit concerning the company’s participation with the Indonesia military in human rights abuses.

9. Northern British Columbia: Northgate Minerals has been obliged to withdraw consideration of expanding its Kerness South Mine, with another open-pit operation. In September, 2007 a joint federal and provincial environmental review panel said that, while the company met all necessary requirements to proceed, Northgate should not proceed with its project. The panel cited negative impacts on aboriginal peoples, lack of community support for the project, and a loss of the spiritually- valuable Duncan Lake, which would have been used to dispose of tailings. According to the panel, “The economic and social benefits provided by the project, on balance, are out weighed by the risks of significant adverse environmental, social and cultural effects, some of which may not emerge until many years after operations cease.”

10. Saugerties, New York: Beginning in 2001 and ending in November of 2004 an ambitious deep pocketed miner happened to choose a residential area in Saugerties to establish a bluestone mining operation to mine for 20 years or more. The community banded together and stopped the mine.

Grassroots Success Against Dangerous Mines in the US

By Gabriel Caplett

As the Upper Peninsula battles against a metallic sulfide mining district, citizens have turned to neighboring Wisconsin as an example of successful grassroots opposition to unsustainable mining.

Ironically, Kennecott has also found inspiration in Wisconsin. The company has showcased its now-closed Flambeau Mine in attempts to demonstrate that it is capable of operating a successful sulfide mine in the UP.

Kennecott, and the industry as a whole, has learned its lesson in losing to grassroots mining opponents in Wisconsin and around the world.

Kennecott’s Unfulfilled Obligations

In 2007, Kennecott attempted to obtain a Certificate of Completion for its reclamation activities at the Flambeau Mine site, in Rusk County. The Certificate does not address ground and surface water contamination and excludes from scrutiny the 32 acres that comprised the actual mine site.

In Rio Tinto’s March, 2008, “Review” Kennecott Eagle project manager, Jon Cherry, falsely claims that, in Wisconsin, the company “received a Certificate of Completion, which means that we’ve fulfilled all our obligations” at the Flambeau Mine.”

Although the mine has been closed for only 10 years, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and company monitoring of the Flambeau River shows levels of mine contaminants, including heavy metals, in sediment and crayfish to be 10 to 100 times higher than Kennecott’s independent data anticipated during the Flambeau Mine permit process.

Despite this evidence, Kennecott claims that “the River has been fully protected at every stage of the….Project….Testing shows conclusively ground water quality surrounding the site is as good as it was before mining.”

Although Kennecott’s application predicted that groundwater pollution from the backfilled pit would continue for roughly 4,000 years, the company maintains that a security bond of $12 million was “never intended to address groundwater or surface water contamination that may exist now or in the future.”

While Kennecott did secure state approval and bypassed obtaining the people’s consent to operate its Flambeau mine, citizens did delay the project for years and began a campaign, in 1993, to pass a moratorium on metallic sulfide mining in the state.

Tough Enough?

In 1998, under immense public pressure, the Wisconsin legislature passed the “Churchill” Moratorium bill, requiring that a mining company present an example of a metallic sulfide mine that has operated for 10 years without polluting surface or ground water from the mine or its tailings. It must also show a mine that has been closed for 10 years without polluting surface or ground water.

Although the Wisconsin DNR refused to write administrative rules, thus weakening the law, the state’s “moratorium” is considered the toughest metallic mining law in the nation and has, for a decade, kept Kennecott/Rio Tinto and other transnational mining companies out of operation in the state.

Mining giant BHP-Billiton, through its subsidiary Nicolet Minerals, attempted to bypass the moratorium by citing examples in Arizona, Canada and California. Located south of Crandon, the 55 million ton zinc, copper and lead deposit, first discovered by Exxon Minerals had been stalled by massive citizen opposition since 1976.

By April, 2003, as the examples proved unable to pass scrutiny under Wisconsin law, BHP sold Nicolet Minerals and its surface and mineral rights for the project to Northern Wisconsin Resource Group, a subsidiary of Nicolet Hardwood Corp.

On October 28, 2003, the Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa and the Forest County Potawatomi tribes purchased Nicolet Minerals and the lands associated with the proposed project site, ending the 27 year fight between the citizens of Wisconsin and the world’s most powerful mining companies. Two days later, the DNR received a letter from the company announcing its intention to withdraw its permit applications:

“Given the number of sulfide mines that have caused catastrophic water pollution in North America and the lack of reliable data to suggest that modern sulfide mining technology has improved sufficiently to justify taking the risks that this project poses, it is doubtful that [Nicolet Minerals] could, in good faith, meet its burden of proof under the Wisconsin Mining Moratorium Law.”

Sticking it to the Locals

The law remains far stricter than Michigan’s new nonferrous mining laws. In early 2004, at the first public meeting to discuss creating a new law, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s Deputy Director, Skip Pruss, instructed a group of mining company officials, lawyers, local authorities, tribes and environmental groups, that Wisconsin’s law would not be a valid topic of discussion. A law and rules were then created that would regulate metallic mining, rather than prevent its use in the state until it could be done safely.

The law stripped local townships of authority to reject or approve metallic mining plans, a tactic that had been highly successful in Wisconsin. The law also failed to include a requirement for mining companies to obtain free, prior and informed consent from the local community and completely disregarded native treaty rights when considering applications.

As in Wisconsin, a community in New York State utilized township zoning authority to stave off an unwanted rock mine, successfully stopping the mine from opening.

Zoning Power in New York

Citizens in Saugerties, New York, used the town’s 1989 zoning laws to prevent the opening of a rock mine within a residential district. The proposed mine, located near federally-recognized wetlands would have excavated roughly 2.8 million cubic yards of stone over a 28-year period and affected the local water table.

Gilbert Shott submitted a mining application to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The application was rejected twice as incomplete. Despite Schott’s faulty application, the DEC ruled that excavation of 1200 pallets of bluestone was not considered “mining” and could be performed without a permit. Shott was stopped twice from excavating stone without a permit.

When the town board upheld a restriction on mining in residential areas, Shott sued the town for enforcing its zoning laws.

After 5 state and federal lawsuits rejecting Shott’s legal claims, Gilbert Shott decided against appealing the decisions in State Supreme Court.

While mining projects have been stopped by communities wanting to protect their fresh water in Wisconsin and New York, other communities have had success in stalling projects. Citizen opposition to molybdenum mining, in Colorado, has been referred to as one of the ‘most effective grassroots environmental movements in the Rocky Mountains.’

Crested Butte’s Battle

The grassroots High Country Citizen’s Alliance and local business group, the Red Lady Coalition, have been fighting US Energy’s Lucky Jack sulfide mine project, on Mount Emmons, in Colorado. The project covers 5,400 acres in mineral claims and reportedly contains roughly 22 million tons of high-grade molybdenum and 220 tons of low-grade ore, making it one of the largest deposits of molybdenum in the world. Opponents have expressed concerns over the high potential for acid mine drainage.

Mt. Emmons has been home to mining operations in the past. An 1884 disaster claiming the lives of more than forty-four miners ended production at the Jokerville Coal Mine. Following exhaustion of anthracite coal at the Big Mine, in 1952, US Energy developed the Keystone Mine, on Mt. Emmons, in the 1960s, eventually selling the project to Amax. In the mid-1970s, four tailings ponds at the mine, which contained high concentrations of heavy metals, failed and drained into nearby Coal Creek. Crested Butte residents forced Amax, by then owned by Phelps-Dodge, to construct a water treatment plant and pay for operating expenses. Dissatisfied with costs associated with efforts to reclaim the tailings mess, the property reverted to US Energy, in 2006. In order to cover costs associated with treating water contamination from its old mining operation, the company is attempting to extract molybdenum from the mountain.

US Energy plans to mill its product on a 100-acre site, near the base of the mountain, using a process involving the use of sodium cyanide. The milled product would be transported through the town of Crested Butte. Mine tailings would be pumped, via a four-mile pipeline, and dumped near the headwaters of Ohio Creek at a 200-acre impoundment that would contain up to 200 feet of mine waste.

In March a Canadian mining company, Kobex Resources, withdrew from the joint venture project. Kobex was to operate and maintain up to a 65% interest in the mine. The company, which raised nearly $30 million to finance the operation, spent at least $8 million on rehabilitation of US Energy’s abandoned mine site and exploration.

In a press release, Kobex expressed that “the regulatory and legal uncertainties which currently exist at the Federal, State, County and Municipal levels, in the Company’s opinion, have become too great to justify the necessary time and major pre-development expenditures that are required to advance this property.”

US Energy, which claims it is entertaining bids for another joint venture from larger mining companies, remains committed to the project, and has hired Samuel Engineering to conduct a pre-feasibility study for the project.

A US Energy press release states, “This project has “world-class” potential, and [U.S. Energy] stands undeterred in its resolve to advance, permit and develop Lucky Jack into a premier primary molybdenum mine that the United States can be proud of.”

On May 14, Colorado’s Mined Reclamation Board rejected a review of the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety’s decision to allow US Energy to construct an “exploratory” tunnel, referred to as a “drift” by the industry, on Mt. Emmons. The Board noted that, under current law, prospecting decisions cannot be appealed by the public or any state agency. Opponents maintain that the tunnel is not necessary for exploration purposes and should be considered an un-permitted mining activity, as the tunnel would likely serve as a ventilation shaft or access point for a potential mine. US Energy still needs approval from the town of Crested Butte and Gunnison County to begin construction of the tunnel.

The Red Lady Coalition announced, in March, that one of the world’s largest law firms, DLA Piper, agreed to take their case, pro bono. Also, a state law is being considered that would allow public a degree of access to mine prospecting information, while much information would still be considered proprietary. Currently, Colorado keeps all prospecting information secret. The new law would allow public comment and some evaluation of environmental damages associated with prospecting and exploration.

Watch Our New Movie

Mining corporations try to control their public image and disempower the local people by spinning their projects as a “done deal”. Citizens may in fact lack the monetary and expert resources of a mining corporation, but well-organized, united citizens are a proven, effective grassroots tactic with a lot of power and a glorious history. We can stop metallic sulfide mining in the Upper Peninsula…it is not a done deal.

We will periodically update our website with information and lists about the possible roadblocks for Kennecott and other sulfide and uranium mining companies looking to create a new mining district that will effect our way of life in the UP. So, check back and see what you can do to make sure the sulfide mining deal doesn’t go down in the State of Michigan.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X7G4GBS0hw[/youtube]