Author Archives: Save the Wild UP

Old sulfide mines don’t die … they just get deadlier

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Here’s a story from the other side of the country about a used-up sulfide mine. When an acid mine is retired, often its work on the environment has only begun.

Shuttered mines still spewing poisons
Costs soar as acidic waters gush freely from 12 of Oregon’s abandoned mines
Acid Mine Drainage from the Formosa Mine
By Diane Dietz
The Register-Guard

The federal government has formally proposed adding the polluted and abandoned Formosa mine in Douglas County to the Superfund list of the nation’s worst toxic waste sites.

The move eventually could lead to a federal cleanup of the shuttered copper mine about 25 miles south of Roseburg, said Ken Marcy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency coordinator for the Superfund list in the region. A listing also could spark an intensified federal effort to get those responsible to pay for the cleanup, Marcy said.

The Formosa mine, perhaps the most polluted mining site in the state, was actively worked by a Canadian venture, Formosa Exploration Inc., from 1990 to 1993. Formosa was partly funded by two Japanese firms.

The state shut down the operation after Formosa repeatedly violated its state permit by excavating more than allowed and spreading waste rock over the 76-acre site atop Silver Butte. Within the honeycomb of mine shafts in the mountain, sulfide-bearing rock is exposed to air and water, creating an acidic, metals-contaminated brew that pours out of the mine entrance and from fissures in the mountainside. The mine spews about 5 million gallons a year of the acidic water into nearby streams. Don't Drink The Water (as if you needed to be told)The effluent has killed about 18 miles of salmon-rearing tributaries to the South Umpqua River, including part of Cow Creek.

The mine poses a “serious, ongoing threat” to people and the environment, the EPA said.

The site has contaminated fish in Cow Creek, which is fished by members of an Indian tribe and by recreational fishermen, the agency said.

Read the rest of Mine may make Superfund list in the Eugene Register-Guard and/or visit the Umpqua Watersheds page of the Formosa (Silver Butte) Mine.

Canadian company begins test drilling for new mine sites

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From yesterday’s Mining Journal….

Mining exploration continues
By JOHN PEPIN, Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — A Canadian mining company, exploring mineral deposits in the area since 2000, has announced plans to begin test drilling this month near the proposed site of the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company Eagle Project.

Laughing Whitefish RiverPrime Meridian Resources Corp. of Calgary, Alberta, plans to test drill at locations within two miles of the nickel and copper deposit on the Yellow Dog Plains sought by Kennecott

…

Prime Meridian’s drilling will start in the Baraga Basin and Kiernan Sill nickel-copper project areas in settings similar to the Eagle Deposit. The areas are only accessible during winter.*

The company’s strategy for nickel-copper exploration has been to focus on the northerly portion of the Mid-continent Rift located in Michigan and Minnesota.

“The rift provides a deep-seated structure and conduit that permits the development of magmatic nickel-copper (plus or minus cobalt), platinum, palladium and gold mineralization to be deposited, which is similar to Kennecott-Rio Tinto’s Eagle Deposit,” the release said.

* IMPORTANT NOTE: This is because these areas are some of the most water-rich areas in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Photo credit: Laughing Whitefish River by James Phelps

Weekend Sulfide Mining News Roundup

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Waste flows from an Abandoned Canadian MineIf you come across any stories that we missed, please add them as comments below!

NPR: Michigan Revokes Approval of Sulfide Mine

The story of the DEQ’s permit reached the national airwaves Friday, on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

WLUC-TV: Another Sulfide Mine For Marquette County?

Within the next couple of weeks, a Canadian firm says it’s going to be exploring for possible future mining sites in sulfide bodies in northwest Marquette County.

Prime Meridian Resources Corporation says it will begin looking at sites in what’s known as the Baraga Basin, and in an Iron County region known as Kiernan Sill.

The Marquette County sites are located just a few miles from where Kennecott is proposing to drill its sulfide mine for nickel and copper.

As we have been saying, the Kennecott Eagle mine is just the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg looming square in the path of an unpolluted U.P. and Great Lakes.

Blogger Eric B says Kennecott mine documents are now online

A consultant’s study and technical memo at the center of the Kennecott mine controversy are now available online at the DEQ Web site. The crux of the report, according to the executive summary, is that additional study of the proposed mine’s stability and safety is necessary.

Photo credit: Mine waste at the abandoned Tom Valley Mine. Mac Pass, Canol Road, Yukon. by Lee Carruthers.

News Release: Environmental Groups Call for Removal of Top Mining Regulator

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Deleted Documents Part of a Pattern of Lax Accountability and Biased Scrutiny of Dangerous Sulfide Mining Proposal

For Immediate Release, March 8, 2007

Contact:
Marvin Roberson, Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, 906-360-0288
James Clift, Michigan Environmental Council, 517-256-0553

The reassignment of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s top mining regulator, Geological Survey Division Chief Hal Fitch, is essential to restoring integrity to the agency’s mine permitting process, four of the state’s leading environmental organizations and citizen groups said today.

Fitch’s sloppy oversight of the proposed Kennecott Minerals Co. sulfide mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has undermined the state’s tough new mining laws, put the U.P.’s tourism economy and natural resources at risk, and shattered public confidence in the mining permit process. The groups think the process needs to start over under new leadership.

The shortcomings imploded last week with revelations that a key consultant’s report criticizing the engineering of the mine’s support structures was deleted from state files and the public record by one or more employees under Fitch’s supervision. The report may have been shared with Kennecott prior to its suppression – a matter currently under investigation.

“Whether or not this inexcusable breach of trust was done with Mr. Fitch’s knowledge is beside the point,” said James Clift, Policy Director of the Michigan Environmental Council. “It is symptomatic of a relationship Mr. Fitch and his subordinates have with Kennecott that is compromising their ability to make objective decisions regarding this application. It has seemed from Day One that the regulators were acting more as an arm of Kennecott Minerals than the public watchdogs they are supposed to be. We have confidence that Gov. Granholm and MDEQ Director Steve Chester will find a replacement whose integrity and impartiality is beyond reproach.”

In the wake of last week’s revelations, state officials rescinded a preliminary approval for the mine, postponed a slate of public hearings and launched an independent investigation of the report’s suppression.

“We commend Mr. Chester for taking those steps, but we think the agency needs to go back to square one with this permit application,” said Marvin Roberson of the Sierra Club. “We’re left to wonder what other important data may have been censored, altered, or kept hidden from the public and Mr. Chester. A fresh start, both for the review process and for the leadership of that division, will go a long way toward restoring the trust that has crumbled.”

The mine, if approved, would create dangerous battery-acid strength liquid waste laced with toxic heavy metals. Managed improperly, or subject to lax state enforcement, the waste could contaminate groundwater and ruin numerous trout streams that flow into Lake Superior near Big Bay.

The Kennecott proposal is the first test of the state’s new mining law. It was written to regulate what are expected to be numerous new mining applications in the coming decade – all in the sulfide rock formations that create the dangerous acids.

“Other companies and Michigan citizens who care deeply about the state’s water resources are watching this permit closely,” said Clift. “What happens here will set the standard for the next generation of mining applications in Michigan.”

Groups asking for a new start with new leadership include: The League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, Michigan Environmental Council, Save the Wild UP and Sierra Club’s Michigan chapter.

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More exploration of sulfide mining in UP

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Drill rigAnother foreign-owned mining company eyes region for profits to export

Apparently unaware of the decision of Michigan regulators to reverse themselves on the preliminary approval of Kennecott Eagle Mineral Company’s mining application, a Canadian exploration company announced Friday its intent to begin test drilling in the Upper Peninsula’s Baraga basin.

In a company news release, Prime Meridian said field crews are en route to the U.P., where they will “establish and survey grids over all of the company’s high priority drill targets” and plan to begin by mid-March, when drill rigs will arrive in the area.

Read the complete media release for more information about foreign mining companies targeting the UP for sulfide and uranium mining from Save the Wild UP.

Why the Governor needs to oppose this mine

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Originally published in The North Woods Call (Feb 14, 2007)
Readers Who Care by Hugh McDiarmid Jr., Michigan Environmental Council

Governor GranholmMichigan’s environmental community – which overwhelmingly backed Gov. Jennifer Granholm in her re-election bid – joined forces with grassroots groups and lashed out at the Governor for recklessly endangering the environment. In a show of strength, they went as far as placing a scathing, full-page newspaper advertisement taking her to task. View the ad (PDF).

We thought you might be interested in the reasons why. It’s part of an important story that is playing out in the Upper Peninsula with serious implications for all of Michigan. Continue reading →

Intrigue as mining regulatory process falls apart

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SentinelIn Reversal on mine shows intrigue, columnist George Weeks takes a look at the circumstances surrounding the proposed Kennecott Eagle project. He notes that:

Of particular interest is how DEQ Director Steven Chester on March 1, in withdrawing the tentative approval because of DEQ’s inadequate consideration of reports questioning “structural integrity of the mine,” did something all too rare in government at all levels: He acknowledged a staff screw-up and ordered a review of the matter during which “affected staff will be reassigned to other projects.” Welcome candor.

Sen. Mike Prusi, D-Ishpeming, a former Steelworkers local president and mine worker, told me Friday after a conference call with Chester and others, that it was apparent that the regulatory process had “fallen apart,” leaving the project for the time being “rocked back (on its) heels.” It seems that someone in the DEQ bureaucracy, upon receiving the critical reports from retained consultants, did not forward them up the line.

Keep UP mining safety doubt-free

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March 3, 2007 editorial from the Detroit Free Press:

Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality stumbled in an uncharacteristic but worrisome way when it sidetracked, then retrieved, a two-part report it commissioned on a proposed underground mine near Marquette.

The first part of the report, by a mining engineer the DEQ hired as a consultant, raised doubt about whether Kennecott Mining Co.’s planned operation left a strong enough top layer to prevent a cave-in. The second part signed off on the mine’s safety as long as mining activity is at least 360 feet below the surface.

The DEQ canceled hearings planned for this month because the reports did not get full review within the department, never became public and had not been sent to Kennecott for a full response, which also would have been publicly posted. DEQ Director Steve Chester made the right decision to halt the permit process within days of learning of the report.

But it’s hard to understand why, even if this were merely a lapse in judgment, more people didn’t notice the absence of material from a consultant the department had hired for needed expertise. The DEQ has pledged to make the mine application process open and transparent. Apparently that promise didn’t register with every employee.

The mine is controversial because any misstep could ruin a fabulous trout stream, which starts in a wetlands complex directly above the nickel and copper deposit that Kennecott wants to extract.

Mine opponents already have charged this was a cover-up. Chester has to investigate fast, clean house if necessary, and explain thoroughly to retain the public’s trust. When a report dealing with mine safety doesn’t see the light of day, skeptics have reason to wonder what else lies below the surface.

Open Letter from Fred Rydholm

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A SULFIDE MINE ON THE YELLOWDOG PLAINS?

An open letter from C. Fred Rydholm, Marquette, Michigan

“Will glaring lights from the operation hide the stars we are used to watching?”

It seems that no matter how much is said, nor who said it, no matter how the facts are stated or documented at these public hearings, nothing can dissuade the DEQ from their headlong course of granting permission to Kennecott to proceed with their mining operation on the Yellowdog Plains, even after listening to overwhelming testimony against such action. Continue reading →

Cover-Up In Process?

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Environmental Groups Suspect Cover-Up

WLUC TV6

A day after the Department of Environmental Quality’s surprise announcement that it was withdrawing it preliminary approval for a mine in the Yellow Dog Plains, environmental groups are now suggesting the DEQ might be involved in a cover-up …

“We still have concerns with the integrity of the process and what’s going on at the lower levels of the DEQ,” said Michelle Halley of the National Wildlife Federation, which opposes the mine. “There may be other reports or other information that are being suppressed.”

She also claimed that opponents of the proposed mine have been stymied in their attempts to get documents under the Freedom of Information Act.