Mine debate echoes across state – Decision time near
By JOHN FLESHER, AP Environmental Writer
TRAVERSE CITY (AP) — Biking enthusiast Michael Robold recoils at the idea of a copper and nickel mine amid the woods and rivers of the Yellow Dog Plains.
‘‘It would be a travesty!’’ he exclaimed during a rally called by opponents.
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October 14, 2007
MARQUETTE — Every time the price of copper or nickel jumps, Alexis Raney cringes.
Each new high means the companies prospecting for metals across the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, near the shores of Lake Superior, have a new reason to explore.
Raney works with Save the Wild UP, one of a half-dozen environmental groups trying to stop a proposed nickel and copper mine near Big Bay.
It would be the first new mine in Michigan in decades and could be the harbinger of a fresh mining boom that could bring hundreds of jobs to this region of pristine rivers, blue lakes, huckleberry fields, forests and high unemployment.
The proposed Kennecott Eagle mine would be dug directly beneath the shimmering Salmon Trout River, home to the rare coaster brook trout, and its tunnel would be blasted below Eagle Rock, considered sacred by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
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There is still time to make your voice heard: click to make public comment before October 17, 2007!
October 12, 2007 Detroit Free Press Editorial: No room for UP mine errors:
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality must tread carefully as it nears a final permitting decision for a proposed nickel mine near Marquette. Even a single flaw should be grounds for rejection.
The Kennecott Eagle Mine project involves blasting underground on a slant from a rock outcropping to a patch of nickel-laden rock beneath wetlands. The wetlands area, which sits high on the Yellow Dog Plain outside Marquette, feeds two rivers that run to Lake Superior. If Kennecott has made any miscalculations, the environmental damage could be huge. Even operational mistakes could cause problems that linger for decades.
On paper, a perfectly run mine would cause minimal disruption except for its trucks. Pollution concerns would be minor to nonexistent. But the Lake Superior basin, outside of some long-standing mining and industrial zones, has remained magnificently untamed. It also is covered by a binational pact to work toward zero discharge of key pollutants, including mercury and dioxins.
In other words, the UP’s north shore, in particular, deserves special safeguards — and the recognition that humans rarely hit perfection. If the proposed permit cannot stand up to this standard, it should be denied.
In addition, an assurance bond Kennecott will post seems low. The $17 million to be set aside is budgeted mainly to restore the land if Kennecott walks away. The money can be used for environmental repairs, but if serious damage occurred, that might be a drop in the bucket.
The mining industry’s track record has improved greatly over time, but accidents happen. Lagoons leak. Land unexpectedly subsides.
A mine offers temporary construction and operations jobs in the often-stressed UP. But its future seems more likely to lie in luring tourists, adventurers and workers with virtual jobs who love the wild bounty of this very special peninsula.
The Buzzards Have Landed! tells the real story of how a British mining company muscled its way into a small rural community in northern Wisconsin to build a gold, copper and silver mine on the banks of the Flambeau River.
Stories of the grassroots resistance movement, protests, arrests, state and local governmental actions, mining company maneuvers and lawsuits abound. The book also includes numerous charts and graphs demonstrating the negligible impact of the mine on the local economy and the serious nature of ongoing pollution problems at the mine site.
Authors Roscoe Churchill and Laura Furtman combine human interest with hard facts to create a story certain to be of interest to environmentalists, Native American communities, sociologists, lawmakers, environmental attorneys, economists, educators, historians … and anyone who enjoys reading a colorful story!
Learn More about the book or find out how to order a copy.
Examples show sulfide farce
By Al Gedicks
At the recent public hearings on Kennecott’s proposed Eagle Project metallic sulfide mine, company officials cited Kennecott’s Ladysmith (Wis.) mine as a model of responsible mining. This is sheer nonsense.
Neither the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources nor Kennecott disputes that there is water pollution at the mining site. Public records show that the Flambeau (Wis.) Mine has polluted Stream C, a state navigable water that flows directly into the Flambeau River, with levels of copper that exceed the state’s water quality standards. At the recent contested case hearing on Kennecott’s application for a Certificate of Completion for the Flambeau Mine, Dr. John Coleman of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission testified that all the copper readings in water discharging to Stream C between 1999 and 2005 exceeded what the Department of Natural Resources estimates is the level of concern for discharge to waters such as Stream C, and on average exceeded the level that was considered allowable under the wastewater discharge permit that was in place during mining.
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For detailed infromation on Flambeau mine click here
Eric Hansen, an award-winning outdoors-writer, has written a beautiful op-ed in The Capital Times, based in Madison, WI. Save The Wild UP would like to thank Eric for his positive contributions to this issue and the effort he puts into helping Michigan folks and organizatuions network with our Wisconsin neighbors. It really helps to have support from those who have dealt with similar situations and in the case of Crandon…those who have triumphed!
Aquila Completes Airborne Geophysical Survey
TORONTO, ONTARIO — (MARKET WIRE) — 10/04/07 — AQUILA RESOURCES INC. (TSX: AQA)(FRANKFURT: JM4A) (“Aquila” or the “Company”) today announced that an airborne electromagnetic and magnetic survey at the Back Forty project in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan has been completed. The survey encompassed a block approximately 35 kilometers by 14 kilometers with line spacings of 100 and 200 meters, and was designed to evaluate the mineral potential of favorable rocks extending to the east of known mineralization at the project.
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You Drink It
By Lawrence Cosentino
Lansing City Pulse
The state is getting close to a decision on whether to allow Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co. to break ground — literally and figuratively — in the UP for a sulfide mine. Environmentalists are doing all they can to prevent it.
When government officials sit through lengthy public hearings, a glass of water can be a lifesaver. At an emotional hearing Sept. 19 at the Lansing Center, an unorthodox petitioner offered up a bit of theater, reversing the roles of rescuer and rescued.
A panel of staffers from the state’s Department of Environmental Quality watched as 14-year Upper Peninsula wilderness dweller Chauncy Moran poured a quart of crystal-clear water from one bottle into another, dramatizing a bitter fight over the state’s water resources, now heading into its final innings.
Moran, a white-haired mountain man lean as a deer, told officials the water came from the pristine Salmon Trout River, near the Big Bay area west of Marquette, not far from his own home on Moss Creek.
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By Todd Sears
This whole donnybrook up in the U.P. regarding proposed sulfide mining on the Yellow Dog Plains has me a bit bewildered. Working in the federal government for over 20 years I have a good feel for how bureaucracies work, or don’t. Granted, my experience has been with defense and defense-related organizations and not environmental ones, the lessons learned are applicable to any large organization.
I don’t buy into the commonly made assertion that organizations act or don’t act in a certain way. Organizations are made of people. Typically these peoples’ actions are bounded by mission and vision statements, and guided in their day to day activities by policies, regulations, standard operating procedures or other governance, and plain old common sense when required.
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MARQUETTE – Area physicians concerned about the public health implications of a proposed sulfide mine voted overwhelmingly last week to pass a resolution opposing the project.
At a quarterly medical staff meeting, 117 physicians cast their vote in favor of the resolution, which expressed their wish to “urge the Michigan DEQ to deny the permits (air, water, mining, and state land use) for the Kennecott sulfide mine proposed in Marquette County.”
Scott Emerson, MD, was in attendance at the meeting and said the mood was one of euphoria because the physicians were grateful for an opportunity to discuss the project and their concerns.
“Would you allow a surgeon that had a history of complications to work on your mother? That’s really what we’re talking about with this mine, isn’t it,” Emerson said, explaining the comparison of mining to medicine. “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and physicians understand that.”
Emerson, an area emergency physician, said the health of the community was one of the major driving forces behind the vote.
“It’s a health issue and, as physicians, we are concerned about preventative medicine. That means we are concerned about our air and water, too. Many physicians have been told by patients how concerned they are and really wanted the medical community to stand up for their health concerns,” he explained.
Prior to the vote, physicians discussed a number of concerns in addition to the health implications, including inadequate hydrology studies, potential for Lake Superior contamination, air exhaust carrying particulate dust, and general errors and assumptions that do not meet state environmental statutes.
In addition, Emerson said there is general concern about what he called a “threshold phenomenon.”
“You’re opening the gates. This isn’t about approving one mine, but opening the gates to 20, 30 or more. That’s what physicians are also worried about. Is that part of the DEQ calculation? We don’t think so,” he explained.
The resolution passed by the physicians was read in Lansing Wednesday at the final public hearing on the proposed sulfide mine.