SWUP Asks DEQ To Extend Public Comment, Back Forty Mine Application

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UPDATE

 

 

The DEQ has extended the Public Comment period for the “Back Forty” sulfide mine permit application —new deadline is Tuesday, February 16, 2016.

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Save the Wild U.P. has formally asked the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to extend the Public Comment period (currently set for February 2, 2016) for the mine permit application submitted to the DEQ for the Aquila Resources “Back Forty” sulfide mine project.

Save the Wild U.P. cites the following reasons for the request:

  • Key environmental stakeholders — including tribal members, grassroots organizations and local residents — have reported a range of technical difficulties related to the mine permit application documents: confusions related to non-functioning or misleading URLs, poor functionality (ie: Tables of Contents without internal links), PDF compilation issues (causing viewer applications to randomly ‘skip’ pages while reading), excessive file size of individual PDF files (100MB+, and a single file containing more than 20,000 pages, crashing PDF readers or causing memory errors), residually copy-protected text, etcetera. Altogether, these represent inexcusable obstacles to public participation.
  • The applicant did not submit their primary file — Mine Permit Application Volume I. — in a format usable to the public: the text was copy-protected. The DEQ was notified of this problem by Save the Wild U.P. on December 23rd, and to this date (January 6, 2016) no solution or explanation has been provided by the DEQ.
  • Total file size is over 37,500 pages, not including an AQD “Permit to Install” (New Source Review) which is also in a public comment phase, but not included in DEQ links.
  • Save the Wild U.P. was not notified by the DEQ when this mine permit application went to Public Notice.
  • No information is provided concerning a key “land swap” proposed between Aquila Resources and the State of Michigan, for parcels critical to the mine permit application’s site design. The public has not been informed about the land swap. A direct question about the land swap, asked at the DEQ public meeting in Stephenson on January 5, 2016, could not be answered by the DEQ staff. Until the underlying “land swap” has been publicly reviewed, the mine permit application review should be put on hold.
  • Numerous concerns have been raised about the ‘timing of the permit’ and while the DEQ may not have had control over the application’s original submission date, serious consideration must be given to the holidays, which resulted in DEQ staff being unavailable to resolve concerns in a timely fashion.
  • New information, not disclosed in the permit application materials, is coming to light about the extent to which mapped archaeological resources of enormous cultural value are in the path of this project. The Back Forty mine application threatens to destroy, disrupt or inflict significant damage to Menominee Tribe’ treaty-protected natural and cultural resources. These damages are culturally offensive and unethical. It is in the State of Michigan’s best interest to grant stakeholders additional time for permit review, given the applicant’s apparent lack of full disclosure. The loss of these resources would reverberate well beyond any cultural or political boundaries.

 

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