Letter to the Mining Journal, 2-10-2012
To the Journal editor:
Marquette County Road 595 is being built because of the mine at Eagle Rock. If there were no mine, there would be no road. It is a road for the mine, a haul road.
Kennecott needs to step up to the plate and do what is right, and it is the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s job to make them follow the law.
This is a mine road and the mining company needs to take responsibility for it. They need to amend their permit to include this road. They need to increase their financial assurance to include the road, do an Environmental Impact Assessment, provide contingency plans and address possible reclamation.
These are the responsibility of Kennecott, not the citizens of Marquette County.
If this road is built, County Roads 550, 510 and AAA will continue to be used for the next two years, or until 595 is completed. After that, those roads will still be used for supplies and employees. Who is going to take care of those roads? Who will be paying for the upkeep and repairs?
We have been told for years that money for road repairs and maintenance is scarce. Now the DEQ/Kennecott are asking us to support and take care of a new road whose main purpose is to help a huge international extraction corporation move its ore from the mine to the mill.
I understand why people do not want all this mining traffic coming through their town on the roads they travel every day. I don’t want them in my back yard either, but they are there and will continue to be there into the future. And again the DEQ has not made the mining company responsible.
This issue should have been properly addressed in the original permit. From the beginning, the DEQ has allowed Kennecott to “make up their plans as they go.” This is not what the law says should be done.
It is a haul road and the DEQ needs to treat it as such.
Carla Champagne
Big Bay
Let’s see….” oh, we’ll sweet talk the DEQ into giving us permits to build a mine that may cause serious harm to the air and watershed and we’ll suggest a haul road but if the road doesn’t work out, we’ll use the main road, no problem!” The road permits should have gone hand and hand with the mine permits like Carla said. Kennecott is having their way with the state of Michigan! If CR 595 isn’t approved, and I have a feeling it won’t be, the mine project should be halted until all surveys are done according to Michigan laws.
Julie Meyer
Words are very powerful things. Be very wise in which ones you choose.
Don’t use the enemy’s language.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, not CR595
What’s a road? It is not a tree, nor marsh,
Nor creek, nor is it den to bear, nor any other part
Belonging to a wilderness. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call Trailing Arbutus
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So CR595 would, were it not CR595 call’d
Retain that dear perfection which it owes
Without that title. CR595, doff your name,
And for that name which is not part of you
Take all myself.
All I can say is Kennecott is a subsidiary of Rio Tinto which is owned by the Rothschild Banking Dynasty which has accumulated over 60% of the entire worlds wealth in one extended family. They have a central bank in every country except for 3. Our supposed enemies ( or how they are painted on our media which is also controlled by the Rothschilds ) are North Korea, Cuba, and Iran. HMMMMMMMMMM? If you look at the horrible track record of abuse Rio Tinto’s employees all around the world suffered and the damaged land that wasn’t cleaned up properly at all afterwards you will realize that Kennecott is just another routine pillage for this EVIL company. Just another one of their appointed proxies. They have a myriad of them. The system works in THEIR favor not ours! Some kind of massive physical protest needs to take place or this is already a done deal I’m afraid. SMDH
Dont approve the road and let kennecott save money and use 550 and drive through Marquette. Real smart