Yearly Archives: 2008

Geologist testifies in lansing

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    The contested case hearing challenging permits for a Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company mine in northern Marquette County was scheduled to continue today with testimony from a structural geologist.
The National Wildlife Federation, Huron Mountain Club, Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve and Keweenaw Bay Indian Community are challenging the issuance of mining and groundwater permits by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to Kennecott for its nickel and copper mine.
On Wednesday, Jack Parker and Marsha Bjornerud testified. Parker specializes in practical rock mechanics and Bjornerud is a structural geologist. Bjornerud is expected to conclude her testimony today.
“Both witnesses focused on how Kennecott failed to adequately characterize rock strength and whether the crown pillar will fail,” said Michelle Halley, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation.
After Bjornerud, petitioners expect Wilson Blake, a DEQ subsidence reviewer, Stan Vitton, another specialist in geology and rock mechanics, will testify.
After the petitioner witnesses are finished testifying, witnesses for Kennecott and the DEQ will be called to the stand.
The hearing is important because Kennecott cannot begin work on the Eagle Project until the contested case is settled.

John Pepin, Marquette Mining Journal

Congress considers restoring safeguards on nation’s streams and wetlands

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Congress considers restoring safeguards on nation’s streams and wetlands

by Eric Kroh
Apr 24, 2008

WASHINGTON – Strong bipartisan support could restore federal environmental protection for small streams and wetlands that supply some water to more than 1.6 million people in Illinois alone.

The Clean Water Restoration Act is being examined by House and Senate committees but, though the bill has support from both sides of the aisle, similar bills have died in previous sessions of congress.

The bill would return the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act to where it was before the Supreme Court restricted it in decisions over the past several years. One case involved water in a gravel pit in northern Cook County that had become a wildlife habitat.

Support for the restoration act on Capitol Hill includes 175 co-sponsors of the bill, introduced in the House by James Oberstar, a Republican from Minnesota. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, spoke in support of the bill during a recent hearing.

”With an ever-expanding population and the potentially devastating impacts of global warming on our water supply, now is not the time to be weakening the Clean Water Act,” Boxer said.

Click here for the rest of the story

Story URL: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=87155
Story Retrieval Date: 4/29/2008 2:51:16 PM CST

Hearing begins on permits for Kennecott mine project

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Posted by John Flesher | The Associated Press 

Opponents of a planned nickel and copper mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are trying to overturn a decision by the state Department of Environmental Quality to allow the project.

A hearing began Monday in Lansing on a challenge to the DEQ’s approval of permit applications submitted by Kennecott Minerals Co. It is expected to last several weeks.

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Bob Lovelace

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Seven First Nation leaders sit in jail for peacefully protesting mining activities on their traditional lands in the boreal forests of Ontario, Canada.   For peacefully asserting their rights and preventing mining company officials from accessing their lands, these Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) leaders, – known as the KI Six — were sentenced to six months in prison. The KI Six were sentenced just weeks after Ardoch Algonquin First Nation spokesperson Robert Lovelace began serving a six-month sentence for similar charges.

The 1,200 strong KI community of hunters, fishers, and trappers is opposed to mining activities on their traditional lands in Northern Ontario., Canadian company Platinex Inc. believes their lands contain one of the world’s largest platinum deposits.

Please write to the Ontario government today and demand the immediate release of these political prisoners. The government needs to see an overwhelming outpouring of public support.Your voice can help convince Ontario that this heavy-handed approach is unacceptable—and that the free, prior and informed consent of local communities is an essential pre-requisite to mining.

Click her to find out more about the Canadian government’s lack of consultation with the First Nations

Read a bio about Bob Lovelace 

UP Citizens Address Rio Tinto Board in London

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Written by Gabriel Caplett

London, UK  –  Four citizens from  Michigan’s Upper Peninsula attended Rio Tinto’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center (QEII), in London, England.  Speakers included Susan LaFernier, vice-president of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), Gabriel Caplett from Yellow Dog Summer and Northwoods Wilderness Recovery, and Cynthia Pryor, from the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve.  Fran Whitman, from Friends of the Land of Keweenaw (FOLK), attended but was unable to speak in front of the assembly.

To the crowd of roughly 300 shareholders and journalists, LaFernier addressed the threat to Native American ceded treaty rights with the US government, from 1842 and 1954 treaties.  Rio Tinto chairman, Paul Skinner, interrupted LaFernier’s introduction, instructing the tribal leader to ask only one question, although a shareholder had just previously been able to ask three questions.

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Lower Harbor Oil Spill

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Tug boat leaking oil into Superior

Crews are on the scene.

 

Posted: Monday, April 21, 2008 at 10:20 a.m.MARQUETTE — The Lower Harbor in Marquette is the site of an oil spill. The leak is coming from a tug boat that is moored in the harbor.

Around 9:30 a.m. Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard was notified of the leak coming from the Dorothy Ann, which was pulling a barge.

The tug apparently touched bottom, which jarred a seal causing it to break.

The vessel then contacted the Coast Guard not knowing of the leak at the time.

Crews are on the scene inspecting the spill. The DEQ and Coast Guard will be teaming up to contain and clean up the leak. A Coast Guard chopper did fly-overs of the area to see how widespread the oil was.

Officials say the wind is not strong which is limiting the spread of the oil at this time.

There is no further leakage from the tug.

The Dorothy Ann is waiting for inspection before it can move.

Click here for more information.

   

Investors in Rio Tinto and BP face protests

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By:  Terry Macalister

Thursday April 17 2008

A wave of protests will hit the annual meetings of BP and Rio Tinto in London today as human rights and environmental campaigners voice their concerns at the activities of the extractive industries.

Shareholders at Anglo American on Tuesday were met with similar complaints, while Shell investors will also face protestors at its meeting next month.

Richard Solly, secretary of the London Mining Network, a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) coordinating the protests said: “The UK government must ensure that our businesses do not profit at the expense of the suffering and environmental destruction of communities around the world.”

Campaigners dressed as pirates will greet investors going to the BP annual meeting. Their costumes symbolise the company’s attempt to “rob” Iraq of its oil through pressing the Baghdad administration to sign a new oil law that could see BP negotiating to develop Rumaila, Iraq’s largest producing field.

Activist shareholders plan to question new chief executive, Tony Hayward, on BP’s plans in the face of what they claim is opposition from two in three Iraqis, according to a poll released earlier by NGOs in Britain and America.

Ruth Tanner, senior campaigns officer at charity War on Want, said: “Iraq needs control over its resources to improve living standards for millions of people hit by war and occupation. To most Iraqis the name BP will mean brazen pirates unless the company stops trying to plunder their country’s oil.”

The British government has been using its position as a military occupation power to push the interests of oil companies in Iraq, according to London research group Platform. It obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act which, it claims, reveal extensive efforts since 2004 to push for companies such as BP and Shell to receive long-term contracts, giving them exclusive rights to exploit Iraq’s huge oil fields.

Tribal and community representatives from around the world will address Rio Tinto’s annual meeting and argue that the mining group’s claim that its operations are sustainable and fair is far from the truth. Benny Wenda, chairman of the Koteka Tribal Assembly and representative of the West Papuan independence movement, has been brought to London by the London Mining Network. “Rio Tinto promised they would bring wealth, health and education for my people, but they are paying the Indonesian military that kills my people. They have filled our rivers with pollution and they have destroyed our sacred mountain: their promises are worth nothing to West Papuans.”

Oil companies have also been under fire from NGOs over biofuels. Forecourt suppliers have been under new legislative pressure from Tuesday to provide 2.5% of all diesel and petrol from crop-based sources to reduce carbon pollution.

Rachel Smolker, a campaigner with the Global Forest Coalition said: “The UK has chosen to ignore a vast mountain of evidence that biofuels are contributing to hunger, climate change, deforestation and human rights abuses.”

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Mine opponents speak at Rio Tinto meeting in London

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LONDON, ENGLAND – Four community leaders took their opposition to the proposed Upper Peninsula sulfide mine to the United Kingdom today when each spoke at the annual meeting of London-based Rio Tinto, the mining giant and parent company of Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co.

Before a gathering of thousands, Susan LaFernier, vice president of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, was joined by Cynthia Pryor, Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve; Fran Whitman, Friends of the Land of Keweenaw; and Gabriel Caplett, Northwoods Wilderness Recovery. Each possesses either a share of stock or a proxy allowing them a voice at the meeting.

“We hope to bring an understanding to the Rio Tinto board of directors and shareholders that the citizens of our region and across the state of Michigan do not support their sulfide mining venture on the Yellow Dog Plains,” Pryor explained in an interview just days before the meeting. “We will present them with every citizen and group resolution or petition signed in opposition to this mine.”

In her presentation, LaFernier will explain the tribe’s sense of responsibility for human health, air, water, land and cultural resources, including Eagle Rock, a location of spiritual importance to Native Americans in the region.

“I will inform the Rio Tinto board about our rights as written in the 1842 and 1854 treaties with the United States. These are rights we have always had as first owners of the land,” the tribal official explained. KBIC has opposed the mine since 2004, when the Tribal Council adopted a resolution in opposition to the project.
“The Rio Tinto board should understand that the opposition is not a few radicals, as they have been led to believe, but a large and well-organized coalition involving thousands of people across the state,” Pryor said.

Caplett says the scope of Kennecott’s plans for the Upper Peninsula demands action. “Rio Tinto has multiple projects planned for our water-rich area.  These projects would affect the Great Lakes, which contains roughly one-fourth of the world’s freshwater.  Other companies are planning metallic mineral projects, as well as uranium operations, and are encouraged by weak new mining laws that were heavily influenced by Rio Tinto’s agenda.”

The message of the Upper Peninsula foursome wasn’t the only one heard in opposition to Rio Tinto projects throughout the world. Activists from Argentina and West Papua also appealed to shareholders to take a closer look at projects in their respective countries.

Following the Rio Tinto annual meeting, LaFernier spoke on behalf of the group at a public meeting hosted by Amnesty International UK’s Human Rights Centre.

Save the Wild UP Awarded Grant from Freshwater Future

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The environment in the Upper Peninsula recently received a boost when Save the Wild UP was awarded a grant from Freshwater Future (formerly great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund). The $3,500 grant was awarded to help protect the Upper Peninsula from major risks to the health of some of the Great Lakes region’s most precious groundwater and surface water habitats. This project will research the legal mechanisms landowners can utilize to control mining exploration or mining activity under their surface land ownership, as well as protect habitat. Results will be used to help educate the public on mineral rights ownership and their role in protecting aquatic ecosystems.

Freshwater Future builds effective community-based citizen action to protect and restore the water quality of the Great Lakes basin. They work towards this goal by providing financial assistance, communications and networking assistance, and technical assistance to citizens and grassroots watershed groups throughout the Great Lakes basin. Grassroots organizations and citizen initiatives in both the U.S. and Canada are eligible for funding in the two annual funding cycles.

“With so many great proposals for important work throughout the Great Lakes region, the decision making process was difficult as always,” said Jill Ryan, Executive Director of Freshwater Future. “The 20 applications we reviewed presented unique and thoughtful ways to engage local communities in protecting local rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Save the Wild UP was one of just 10 that received funding in this grant cycle,” said Ryan.

SWUP’s mission is to protect Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from unsustainable development, environmental degradation, and dangerous contamination through public awareness and education. The grant from Freshwater Future will help accomplish this mission by helping to protect headwaters habitats in the Lake Superior and Lake Michigan watersheds from the risks of alteration and contamination by nonferrous metallic mining, particularly sulfide mining processes.

If you would like more information on this project, contact Save the Wild UP, 906-228-4444.