Mining Question: Who is in charge of permitting, and then monitoring a mine within only a few feet of the Menominee River that will create massive amounts of toxic waste? That will, over its lifespan use 360,000 lbs. of cyanide? That will dump wastewater into the Menominee River? In an aquifer that provides water for Marinette and Menominee Counties?

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is in charge.
The same people that:

• “…repeatedly gave assurances that water from the Flint River was safe, when in reality it had dangerous levels of lead.” -Governor Rick Snyder
• “A state investigation has “uncovered systemic failures at the Michigan DEQ, “The fact is, bureaucrats created a culture that valued technical compliance over common sense – and the result was that lead was leaching into residents’ water.” – Governor Rick Snyder
• Governor Rick Snyder states: “the Federal EPA also made mistakes. Top officials silenced an EPA water expert who tried to raise alarms about Flint’s water.”
• Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the oversight panel investigating the Flint water issue states, “…officials need to understand how the system failed the residents of Flint so badly.”

Michigan’s Governor, Rick Snyder states the DEQ operates under a system where “Bureaucrats created a culture that valued technical compliance over common sense.” Isn’t that happening here in the U.P.? Common sense dictates that you don’t permit mining of an acid generating ore, which will liberate heavy metals, create pollution and is within feet of the Menominee River and in the aquifer that provides water for Marinette and Menominee Counties. Shouldn’t the DEQ take what the governor said, and add a common sense factor to what they openly admit doesn’t exist as part of the permitting process today?

Rep. Jason Chaffetz states: “Officials need to understand how the system failed the residents so badly.” Common sense says; any EXTREMELY HIGH RISK project where the DEQ is involved should be put on hold until common sense is made a criteria rather than: “did they just fill in all the blanks on a permit application – even with garbage information just to have the blank filled in?” The DEQ says when they declare a permit application to be “administratively complete” the DEQ doesn’t decide if the information is true or even valid; just that all the blanks are filled in.

Signed,
Tom Boerner, concerned citizen