FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Environmentalists Critical of “Deeply Flawed” Eagle Mine Groundwater Discharge Permit

MARQUETTE — The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has issued a renewed Groundwater Discharge Permit for Eagle Mine, which expired in 2013. The new permit includes multiple revisions to the original permit, and significantly increases the total volume of wastewater discharges, to 504,000 gallons per day. According to grassroots environmental group Save the Wild U.P. (SWUP), the approved permit fails to address elevated levels of uranium and vanadium, and exceedances of copper, molybdenum, silver, lead, arsenic.

In 2014, Save the Wild U.P. led an extensive effort to educate citizens about serious deficiencies in Eagle Mine’s groundwater discharge permit. “It was frustrating, at that time, to see MDEQ regulators quoted in the newspaper, reassuring the public that this permit was sufficiently strong and protective, and didn’t need any revision,” said Kathleen Heideman, SWUP’s president. “Now the MDEQ is congratulating itself for issuing a revised permit.”

“We had a lot of good comments, and we made changes with regard to those comments — which took a long time,” Steve Casey, Michigan DEQ Water Resources Division Upper Peninsula District Supervisor told the audience at a public hearing held January 13, 2015. He referred to the increasing vanadium levels in Eagle Mine’s groundwater discharge area as an “unresolved issue.”

Three months later, Eagle’s vanadium problem remains unexplained but the permit has been granted.

“It is factually inaccurate to say that increasing levels of heavy metals and other pollutants reflects previous ‘natural’ conditions at the Eagle site,” said Heideman. “This permit has exponentially increased the allowable level of various pollutants, compared with Rio Tinto’s own 2004 reported baseline data. Clearly, water quality is undermined by this permit.”

The MDEQ claims that the permit will safeguard “all protected uses of groundwater and surface water in the vicinity of the mine.”

“A groundwater discharge permit is the wrong tool with which to regulate this discharge. The water leaving the mine will ultimately end up in springs and rivers and Lake Superior. The permit needed is a Clean Water Act permit designed to protect the animals and plants living in the springs, rivers and Lake Superior,”  said attorney Michelle Halley, who has worked extensively on Eagle Mine issues. “MDEQ is making the same mistakes over and over.”

 The MDEQ made several changes adding “wastewater influent sampling prior to reverse osmosis” and “provisions for investigating and addressing elevated vanadium concentrations in groundwater, including the installation of additional groundwater monitoring wells.”

According to Alexandra Maxwell, Save the Wild U.P.’s interim director, the MDEQ’s revisions are inadequate. “This is a fancy way of saying, after a year of review, the MDEQ still has no idea why vanadium levels are rising in groundwater around Eagle Mine’s Treated Wastewater Infiltration System (TWIS) — and yet they’re issuing this permit. This really underscores a point we’ve been making all along: a federal permit should have been required for Eagle’s wastewater. The State of Michigan seems wholly unprepared to regulate Eagle Mine at a level that would actually protect our water.”

“Let’s be clear: vanadium levels are increasing in groundwater at Eagle Mine, and the MDEQ doesn’t know why. It was irresponsible to issue this permit,” said Heideman. “The whole approach seems to treat our environment like a chemistry laboratory — they’re running a live experiment, no safety net, and our water is at stake.”

According to December 2014 reporting from the Community Environmental Monitoring Program (CEMP), a joint venture of the Superior Watershed Partnership and Lundin Mining (previously Rio Tinto), uranium levels in water at the Eagle Mine facility have risen to 103 ug/L, more than 3 times higher than the EPA’s limit for drinking water. Since uranium monitoring was not included in Eagle Mine’s permit, the mine claims that no permit violation has occurred.

“Where uranium is concerned, this permit has no teeth,” said Heideman. “The MDEQ added language ‘requiring notification within 24 hours if uranium levels in the effluent exceed 5 ug/l’ and ‘a plan for reducing or eliminating the source of uranium’ but they’ve known about the presence of uranium for two years, and they haven’t required any meaningful response.”

In their response summary, MDEQ referenced 2006 hydrology groundwater flow diagrams, claiming that wastewater from Eagle Mine’s TWIS “will take… 4 to 6 years” to reach springs feeding the Salmon Trout River (3,000 feet away).

“Clearly, we need updated hydrology data to evaluate the groundwater impacts from Eagle Mine’s discharged wastewater. The revised permit calls for additional groundwater monitoring, but does not dictate where the wells will be located — that’s another mistake,” said Heideman. “We’ve repeatedly asked the MDEQ to require groundwater tracing tests, to confirm Eagle Mine’s hydrology theories, but there’s been no action.”

The MDEQ response summary included a reference to recent legislation amending Michigan’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act (NREPA), allowing significantly higher levels of sodium and chloride in groundwater, raising “effluent limits for sodium and chloride to 400 mg/l and 500 mg/l, respectively.”

“Reviewing CEMP data, we see a clear pattern of ongoing and unexplained exceedances,” said Maxwell. “State regulators are asleep at the wheel.”

“The MDEQ’s revised Groundwater Discharge Permit is inconsistent with federal law, fails to protect the Yellow Dog Watershed, and the process for issuing this revised permit violates both state and federal administrative procedures act requirements,” said former federal offshore oil regulator and Keweenaw Bay Indian Community tribal member Jeffery Loman. “Once again, the State of Michigan has demonstrated that they will regulate in a manner which the mining industry demands.”

Founded in 2004, Save the Wild U.P. is a grassroots environmental organization dedicated to preserving the Upper Peninsula of Michigan’s unique cultural and environmental resources. For more information or to schedule an interview, contact info@savethewildup.org or call (906) 662-9987. Get involved with SWUP’s work at savethewildup.org or follow SWUP on Facebook at facebook.com/savethewildup or Twitter @savethewildup.

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