| Contact Your Federal Elected Officials | |
| Your Action is Needed | |
| Please send a message via e-mail or print and send a letter to your federal elected officials urging them to tell the EPA to deny the Underground Injection Permit needed for the proposed Kennecott mine on the Yellow Dog Plains.Click on the Take Action button to the right to send the letter or click here and follow the link titled “Contact Your Federal Elected Officials”
Most of the permits associated with this proposed project are decided on a state level but this one is under the federal jurisdiction of the US Environmental Protection Agency. You may also want to send a copy of this letter to your state congress members and the Governors of Michigan and other Great Lakes States. |
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Tag Archives: Coalition Partners
2008 Indigenous Earth Day Summit
The Center for Native American Studies and the Environmental Science Program at Northern Michigan University are seeking presentation proposals for the 2008 Indigenous Earth Day Summit to be held at NMU April 22-23.
The Summit will function as a call to action on Indigneous environmental issues in the Great Lakes area, on Turtle Island and around the world. An Aboriginal delegation from Australia will be featured as keynote presenters and will provide musical entertainment as part of the Earth Day celebration.
As the Summit is a call to action, presentations should ultimately include ideas on how to address Indigenous environmental concerns. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
– Traditional Ecological Knowledge
– History of industrialism, Indigenous peoples & the Earth
– Sacred land
– Economic globalization & Indigenous peoples
– Indigenous lanugages & the Earth
– Industrial threats confronting Indigenous peoples
– Mother Earth in Indigenous art & music
– Solutions in Indigenous cultures to environmental problems
– Education & Indigenous environmental concerns
– Indigenous subsistence rights & protecting Mother Earth
– Global poisoning’s impact on Indigenous peoples
– Climate change & its impact on Indigenous peoples
– Films on Indigenous environmental issues to show at the Summit are also encouraged.
Proposals should be 150-300 words in length. Deadline for submissions is Feb 20, 2008. Activists, Native elders and Native community members are strongly encouraged to submit proposals. Send proposals to:
adunn@nmu.edu (no attachments please)
-or-
Aimee Cree Dunn
Indigenous Earth Day Summit
112 Whitman Hall
Northern Michigan University
1401 Presque Isle Ave
Marquette, MI 49855
For more info: 906-227-1393 or www.nmu.edu/nativeamericans
The 2008 Indigenous Earth Day Summit is sponsored by NMU Center for Native American Studies, NMU Environmental Science Program and NMU International Affairs.
Time for ACTION!
Public Comment Period still Open on the Land Use Lease.
Even though the comment period has ended for the mining permit, concerned citizens can still send letters to the DNR’s Natural Resource Commission (NRC) on the “Metallic Mineral Mining Operations Surface Use Lease.”
Kennecott wants to lease 120 acres of public land for 35 years from the state of Michigan to use for most of the surface facilities associated with their proposed mine. The NRC will discuss this permit at its regular meeting, on December 6, 2007, with a possible decision at the January, 2008 meeting.
The next NRC meeting will be on Jan. 10, 2008 (Click here to see the agenda)
Kennecott has yet to receive approval from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for its Mining, Air and Groundwater Discharge permits, as well as a Wetlands Permit. Also, the EPA has yet to issue an Underground Injection Control (UIC) permit and the Mining Safety Health Administration has not yet received a permit application. These permits must be fulfilled before the DNR considers the Surface Use Lease, which would close off 120 acres of state land to the public for 35 years.
Please take some time read the online letter, add your own comments, sign and e-mail to the DNR. We also ask that you print the letter and send it to each NRC commissioner and the Director of the DNR. If you have difficulty with the online version a printable version is attached below.
Contact Info for NRC Commissioners
Letter to be personalized and printed
Surface Lease Map
MDEQ Sued for Issuing Illegal Permits
One week after a controversial decision by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to permit a sulfide mine in the central Upper Peninsula, the National Wildlife Federation, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Huron Mountain Club and Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve today filed a contested case petition and a lawsuit against the MDEQ as the first step in a legal challenge to halt the mine.
“The opponents of the mine have presented MDEQ with over 1000 pages of unequivocal evidence that Kennecott’s proposed sulfide mine does not meet the state’s legal requirements and would result in profound pollution, impairment, and destruction of air, water and other natural resources,” Michelle Halley, attorney for NWF and the other co-petitioners explained. “The MDEQ has issued permits that are based upon defective,
inadequate and incomplete applications and are therefore illegal,” she added.
Click here for the full Press Release
Marquette Rally- Show your disappointment:
Please join members of our community on Monday, December 17 to show our disappointment and opposition to the DEQ’s approval of some of the required permits for Kennecott’s proposed metallic sulfide mine.The rally will start at noon on Monday and we will be meeting in front of the Marquette Post Office. Hope to see you there and dress warm!
If you do not live in the Marquette area, consider showing your opposition to the proposed Kennecott project in your neighborhood. Put a sign in your yard, get a group of people together in your city center, or write a letter to the editor!
Thank you for all of your effort!
It ain’t over til’ its over!
Accolades for Daisy May
Congratulations to Daisy May on her wonderful recent reviews and mentions in the press! All of us here at SWUP want to send a big thank you to May and all of those people who help spread the word and educate folks about the beauty of the Upper Peninsula and our unique way of life! Take Action!
Jeff Daniel’s played last Saturday with Daisy and a group of other talented musicians at the Michigan Theater in
Listen to Daisy May’s “Letter from Downstream”
Comments in Opposition to the Mining, Air Use and Groundwater Discharge Permits
Kennecott filed its Mining Permit Application with the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality February 2006. The three partners opposing the proposed mine, National Wildlife Federation, Huron Mountain Club and Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, were already involved with studies of the negative environmental impacts such a mining operation would bring to the Yellow Dog Plains in northwest Marquette County. Upon receiving the Kennecott Mining Permit application, the three groups procured additional technical experts to review every aspect of Kennecott’s 8,000 page Mining Permit Application. Other groups, namely Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve and Save the Wild UP, performed other functions including field studies of baseline conditions, public relations, political communications and community outreach.
The State of Michigan decided the permitting process for the proposed mine would consist of three separate permits: the Mining Permit, the Air Permit and the Groundwater Discharge Permit. Approximately nine months after the Kennecott application was filed with the State, the three mine opposition partners performing the technical reviews decided to concentrate their efforts on one permit each to better focus on the issues, improve the efficient use of limited resources and to eliminate overlap and redundancy in the ongoing technical reviews that each group was conducting. The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) took the Mining Permit, the Huron Mountain Club (HMC) took the Air Permit and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) took the Groundwater Discharge Permit.
The comments submitted to the Michigan DEQ on October 17, 2007 consist of these three sets of comments:
- The NWF Mining Permit comments are contained in Volume I (24.8 MB PDF)
- The HMC Air Permit comments are contained in Volume II-1 (17.2 MB PDF)
- The KBIC Groundwater Discharge comments are contained in Volume II-2 (8.5 MB PDF)
You may also wish to review the Comments Opposing the Leasing of State Lands to Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company submitted to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources by the National Wildlife federation. (183 kb PDF)
Nov. 30 Concert to Benefit Students Against Sulfide Mining
SASM will hold a concert 7:00 pm until midnight, November 30th at the Ramada Inn of Marquette. Entertainment will include a raffle ( a canoe that retails at $1200, Crescent Moon snowshoes, & an Eagle Nest lounge chair) a presentation by Cynthia Pryor, and the following bands: Blue Superiors, GrassMonkey, Superior Beats, and Lost Creek. Please attend and show your support. For more information contact SASM at sasm@nmu.edu.
Bimaaji Nibi: Save the Life of the Water
Save The Wild UP would like to send a special thanks to Keepers of the Water, a coalition partner, for their beautiful video highlighting the need to protect our freshwater resources from sulfide mining. The video, entitled Bimaaji Nibi, was directed by Barb Bradley and filmed and edited by Amy Parlette with assistance from waterfall guide Kora Mills. It recently aired on WLUC TV6 and contains footage of three waterfalls in the Yellow Dog Watershed. In the Ojibwe culture (the first people of the Great Lakes Region) the men are the keepers of the fire and the women are the keepers of the water, “nibi”. The project was funded through a grant from the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and the Western Mining Action Network (WMAN).
OH CANADA!
Canada creates largest Freshwater Marine Protected Area in the World on Lake Superior
To read more about the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area please check out the following links:
We applaud Canada’s recent recognition of the value of Lake Superior and their efforts protect and conserve it! It’s a wonderful start.