Author Archives: Save the Wild UP

Pryor Found Guilty – Letter From Her

Posted on by

Hello to all – today I was found GUILTY for Misdemeanor Trespass. Our case revolved around the requirement for Kennecott to have the final decision on all permits as the foundation for the reason why I felt I did not trespass on state and public property. The Prosecutor introduced a motion that did not allow for ANY discussion of permit issues, leases unfilled etc. and got the judge to agree that only the basics of trespass were to be discussed. We lost that motion.

So despite the fact that the EPA has indicated that they have not given the final decision on the UIC permit – we were not able to use that in court. Despite the fact that others were able to move freely in and out of the property without being arrested – Kennecott indicated that all those people were their guests and they were free to pick and chose who they wanted on the property. Despite the fact there were no signs posted indicating either No Trespass or Work in Progress or any other public notification that public was no longer allowed on the site – Kennecott was able to tell me to leave because they had the lease agreement with the State of Michigan The case ultimately came down to three things that Judge Kangas directed the jury to think about:

Was she on Kennecott (controlled) Land?
Was she asked to Leave?
Did she refuse to Leave?

If you answer yes to these things, she is to be found guilty. Well, that was a no-brainer! Guilty as charged by all six jurors.

I am so grateful to all the folks who came to the court to share a long day with me. I am grateful to all who have supported me personally and to the many, many who BELIEVE in justice and want it done – here and in many places around the world where people go up against the strong arm of Corporate and Government pacts.

Glad to at least be able to go home to my place on the hill – where trees surround and embrace me and my husband and dog both say – I love you anyway!

Sentencing in a few weeks. Never fear though – justice will come – maybe in a way we least expect.

Ever hopeful (What! Are you wacked???),

Cynthia

Civil disobedience, ‘Yooper’ style has lengthy history

Posted on by

By John Saari

June 13, 2010

Civil disobedience is commonly associated with historical struggles for basic human rights, a citizen recourse in situations where government has gone badly off course.

After Cynthia Pryor’s arrest near Eagle Rock, it is not surprising that some have linked her name with Rosa Parks, a notable civil rights era personality. Both openly refused to give up a seat, one on a segregated public bus, the other on a stump on contested public land.

But there is a home-grown tradition of civil disobedience in the Upper Peninsula that is perhaps more fitting as a comparison than the epic struggles over basic human rights. That is the tradition of standing up for one’s rights on the land, often in hidden resistance to authority.

Residents resent being told by the state, or any other outsider, what they can or cannot do, if their actions seem reasonable in their own eyes. Poaching game during hard times is a U.P. tradition tolerated in public opinion when tied to family and personal subsistence. My Uncle Vernon (Ironwood-Hurley) helped support his family during the Depression years by catching brook trout. Nothing went to waste, but he observed no creel limits. The illegal shooting of wolves today is another sign of a backwoods ethic that short-circuits the law.

Some hunters have taken the law into their own hands, convinced that wolves are killing “their” deer, or are a danger to children, pets or domestic animals. A conspiracy of silence seals lips, and this silence in itself is a type of resistance to state authority.

The 1980s and 1990s saw a strong push for landowner’s rights, sometimes called the property rights movement. Signs appeared in the backwoods of the western U.P.: “DNR KEEP OUT.” Some people resented, and resisted, DNR/DEQ restrictions on land use and resource management.

Richard Delene (Baraga) was perhaps the most notorious case. He was prosecuted and eventually banned from Michigan for contempt of court after controversial dredging and ditching on his Baraga Plains land. Many felt he did not get a fair hearing.

Customary road access on private lands has become a big current issue, as metal gates sprout up everywhere. New second home owners, often city folk from downstate or out-of-state, bring their urban values and fears with them. It’s the fence-me-in fence-you-out mentality. Vandalism of gates, signs, and property is not uncommon.

When Kennecott/ Rio Tinto began putting up fences on public land with “No Trespassing” signs, a shock of finality hit many mine opponents. Cynthia Pryor’s arrest for stubbornly sitting on a stump was a catalyst for a deeper emotional reaction: This is wrong. Tracts of public land should not be locked away for decades for private profit.

The recent Native American encampment on Eagle Rock lies within this Yooper tradition of civil disobedience over land rights. Treaties with the U.S. government in the nineteenth century secured them the right to hunt, gather and fish in the ceded territories.

Some of them have chosen to stand by their rights on these lands, in the face of controversial efforts by the state of Michigan and an international corporation to diminish those rights.

While Kennecott/Rio Tinto seemed prepared to negotiate some limited Native access to Eagle Rock as a religious site, the company’s bottom line was to secure its own access, by armed state police if necessary, to Eagle Rock as the mine portal.

Despite the fences, the signs and the bulldozed encampment, Eagle Rock will continue to be a place of resistance, symbolic or otherwise, to this mine. From a legal perspective, the protestors may seem to be in the wrong, however peaceful their stance. But in their guts many U.P. residents will understand where Cynthia Pryor and Charlotte Loonsfoot are coming from in this unequal face-off with corporate and state power.

They are standing by their land, whether it is public land or ceded territory, come what may.

Note:  Jon Saari is president of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition and a member of Save the Wild U.P.

EPA Responds to UIC Permit Questions

Posted on by

According to the attached letter from the EPA to one of our citizens, not only has the EPA not made a final decision on the UIC permit but they state emphatically that state officials were notified of that fact. (See page 1, para 2)

We have not yet completed consultation with the Tribe regarding Agency regulation of the redesigned TWIS and will not make A FINAL DECISION on regulation of that system until after further communication with the Tribe. EPA has informed state officials that no decision has been made about the applicability of the UIC regulations to the redesigned TWIS.

For the full letter, CLICK HERE

June 19 National Sacred Places Prayer Day: Honoring our Water

Posted on by

National Sacred Places Prayer Day:
Honoring our Water
All Welcome
June 19, 2010

Water Ceremony
Sunrise
Little Presque Isle Point
Marquette, MI

Print a poster and distribute!  PrayerBiishFlyer

Community Potluck Picnic and Gathering
12 Noon
Baraga Powwow Grounds Pavilion
Baraga, Michigan
Please join us on Saturday, June 19, 2010 for a day of prayer to protect Native American sacred places.  We will gather at sunrise at Little Presque Isle Point on the shores of Lake Superior to pray for threatened sacred places and to honor the sacredness of the water and Mother Earth.

Eagle Rock, a sacred place to Anishinaabe people, is currently threatened as the proposed mine portal for the Rio Tinto/Kennecott Eagle Mine on the Yellow Dog Plains.  Our fresh groundwater, waterways and Lake Superior are threatened by the Eagle Mine and increasing sulfide and uranium mining interests throughout the Great Lakes region.

Native and non-Native people nationwide will gather at this time for Solstice ceremonies and to honor sacred places, with a special emphasis on the need for Congress to build a door to the courts for Native nations to protect our traditional churches.

We ask that all women who wish to participate wear a skirt in order to honor our traditional way.    Women are also welcome to bring blue prayer ties and blue shawls for the water.

A community potluck picnic and gathering in honor of National Sacred Places Prayer Day will follow at the Powwow Grounds Pavilion in Baraga, MI at 12 noon.  Please join to show your support, ask questions and learn how you can help be a part of the movement to protect our sacred places, water and way of life for future generations.

Directions to Little Presque Isle Point:
From Marquette, Michigan, take 550 North towards Big Bay.  Turn right at the Blue Flag for Little Presque Isle Point.

Directions to Baraga Powwow Grounds Pavilion:
From L’Anse, Michigan take US 41 North towards Houghton.  Turn right at the Powwow Grounds sign.  Turn left at the red building and follow the road to the first pavilion.

Please contact jlkoski@gmail.com or 715.550.0124 if any questions.

Hosted by the Stand for the Land and Oshki Ogitchidaawin Aki (New Warriors for the Earth or NWE) which is a new Native/non-Native environmental organization grounded in Anishinaabe traditions with a mission to educate and empower our communities to take action on mining and other social-ecological issues facing our communities.

Coming soon: Michigan’s version of the BP disaster

Posted on by

By Andy Buchsbaum of the National Wildlife Federation

From “Great Lakes on the Ground”         http://greatlakesontheground.com/

A company with a history of polluting that wants to take valuable resources from deep underground.

An industrial  extraction operation with high risks to hundreds of miles of coastline, spectacular waters, a vibrant fishery…. and human life.

An agency that promotes the industry rather than regulating it.

No contingency plan if (when) the operation goes wrong.

Sound familiar?

I’m not just talking about the BP oil spill. The same scenario is playing out right here in Michigan. Kennecott Eagle Minerals Corp. is about to start digging for nickel and other minerals underneath the headwaters of the U.P’s Salmon Trout River, which runs through the largest stand of old growth forest east of the Mississippi and into Lake Superior. Kennecott plans to blast through a sacred Native American site, Eagle Rock, into sulfide ore bodies that produce acid mine drainage when they come into contact with air and water….. which inevitably they will do. This operation not only is likely to scar this magnificent landscape for hundreds of years. It also has a significant risk –according to the state’s own experts – of a mine collapse, endangering human life and draining the river.

What’s Kennecott’s plan if any of these disasters come to pass? It doesn’t have one.

This mine was vetted and recommended for approval by the Michigan Office of Geological Survey, part of the DNRE and the state equivalent of the now-infamous U.S. Minerals Management Service.

Why?

Well, the head of the Survey’s mining team called the mining project “my baby” and identified Kennecott as his “customer.”

During the application process, he admitted that he concealed an expert memorandum that reported on the risk of mine collapse, after which he was suspended …. and then reinstated as head of the mining team after an internal state investigation said he was motivated by ignorance, not malfeasance. (Well, that’s a relief, right?) Another member of the state’s mining team formed a business partnership with Kennecott employees to offer mining services to the private sector (the partnership was dissolved after it became public).  Finally, the Governor’s UP representative who helped her formulate her position on the mine has also left government service to work for….. you guessed it:  Kennecott. The mining team recommended approval to the Michigan DEQ before it merged with the DNR to form the DNRE. And just days before that merger – perhaps to avoid tarring the new DNRE with this terrible decision – a mid-level DEQ staff member gave final approval to the operation of the mine.

And we thought MMS was corrupt.

NWF and its partner organizations (Yellow Dog Preserve, Keewenaw Bay Indian Community, and Huron Mountain Club) have filed multiple lawsuits to stop the mine.  So far, we’ve only slowed it down, but the major litigation is just beginning.

Meanwhile, members of the tribe and local residents are taking matters into their own hands, camping on Eagle Rock to stop Kennecott from destroying it. Several have been arrested, but they keep at it. And yesterday, over 100 people rallied against the mine on the steps of the state capitol building. Read the latest on these activists at www.StandfortheLand.com. Or check out Save the Wild UP’s website, www.SavetheWildUP.org.

I’ll be writing about this travesty more often, now that the state has approved it and the action on the ground is heating up. To read a more detailed history, check out NWF’s sulfide mining web page.

Or even better, watch the movie! NWF has co-produced an award-winning documentary on the mine called Mining Madness, Water Wars: Great Lakes in the Balance.

This mine is a massive disaster waiting to happen, and the state’s complicity is an outrage. Call your elected state officials and the Governor to let them know.

Tags: sulfide mining, Kennecott, Michigan Upper Peninsula, Kennecott Eagle Mine, Lake Superior

Eagle Rock Music Video

Posted on by

The talents of videographer Greg Peterson and singer/songwriter Drew Nelson combine to recreate the magic of the Eagle Rock Stand.

Thanks to both of you for this great contribution!

Watch it on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ces63iissE

Contact Drew Nelson: http://www.drewnelson.net/

Contact Greg Peterson: http://www.youtube.com/user/YOOPERNEWSMAN

More Eagle Rock Stand information at http://standfortheland.com