Will Michigan be able to afford the possible mess?

http://michiganmessenger.com/40044/dnre-reassurances-fail-to-convince-environmentalists-skeptics

By Eartha Jane Melzer 7/26/10 8:13 AM

This first mine to be permitted under Michigan’s non-ferrous metallic mining law — the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company nickel sulfide mine west of Marquette — continues to draw concerns and criticism.

Michigan has dwindling resources for environmental regulation and its environmental and natural resources divisions are undergoing transformation and downsizing.

In an interview with Michigan Messenger this month state Department of Natural Resources and Environment spokesman Bob McCann — formerly spokesman for the Department of Environmental Quality — offered a dismal picture of how the state would regulate the mine. He said that the controversial nickel sulfide mine, like other businesses in Michigan, might be inspected once a year or less due to dwindling state resources. He also stated that Michigan has no system to pay for regulation though assessing fees, and that the $17 million financial assurance bond put up by Kennecott was expected to be enough to close up the mine if the company disappeared, but that any environmental damages that the mine might produce would have to be pursued in court.

McCann has now left DNRE and current spokeswoman Mary Dettloff says that McCann was mistaken about how the state will treat regulation at the mine.

Dettloff said that Michigan mining law requires that the mine be inspected at least quarterly. She said that these inspections will be carried out by the Office of Geological Survey specialist in the Gwinn office — Joe Maki.

Michigan does assess a “surveillance fee” based on the amount of material mined in order to fund oversight of the mine, she said.

According to the law that fee is equal to, “not more that 5 cents per ton of material mined from the mining area as reported under section 63213(1)(d), but not less than $5,000.00, for each calendar year the mine is in operation and during the postclosure monitoring period.”

Dettloff also said that the $17 million actually is supposed to cover the costs of any environmental remediation work needed after the mine is closed, and her assessment appears to be backed up by the statute.

The new information from DNRE does not reassure critics of the state’s approach to the mine.

It’s not clear what the mining inspections will entail. Those familiar with inspections at other UP mines are not reassured by the state approach, and some don’t trust the state to follow the statute because they feel the state has already violated the statute in issuing permits for the mine.

Michelle Begnoche is spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee), who represents the Upper Peninsula.

“Regardless of whether that is supposed to cover just the costs of closing the mine, or the remediation, Representative Stupak is concerned that it is not enough,” she said.

Addressing water pollution can be very expensive, as evidenced by other contaminated sites in northern Michigan. In Petoskey, where the Bay Harbor resort development was built atop land contaminated with cement kiln dust, she said, the party responsible for clean up — CMS Energy — has estimated that cleanup costs will require $93 million.

Stupak has also warned that Michigan does not have adequate resources to monitor the mine and that state regulators did not require the company to conduct baseline environmental assessments of the area around the mine. This, he said, will make proving environmental damage very difficult.

Independent mining consultant Jack Parker, has raised numerous concerns about the planned mine.

“I recognize that inspections are meant to be quarterly,” he said, “but given the environmental records of both Rio Tinto and Kennecott Eagle Mineral Company, I would require constant monitoring, daily, with support from other experts on such matters as disposal of waste water at the mine, the mill and the transport system.”

Parker noted that some mines have been known to sprinkle toxic waste along gravel roads as a cheap and effective way to reduce dust.

An appropriate inspection regime for a mine run by Kennecott, he said, should involve at least one technically-oriented inspector who would be stationed at the mine full time.

This is a level of oversight far beyond what is planned by the state.

“I believe that overall our law is pretty good,“ said National Wildlife Fund attorney Michelle Halley. “But a law is only as good as it is enforced. Right now the way the state is applying its part 632 enforcement does not even exist.”

Halley, along with attorneys for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve and the Huron Mountain Club, has filed suit against the DNRE in Washtenaw County, arguing that the permits issued to Kennecott are flawed and should be overturned.

Under Michigan mining regulations, “a permit can be granted only if the applicant demonstrates that the mining operation will not pollute, impair, or destroy the air, water, or other natural resources or the public trust in those resources in accordance with the Michigan Environmental Protection Act.”

Those suing the state argue that during the permitting process the state failed to require Kennecott to conduct an environmental inventory around the mine or address the mine’s cumulative impact.

“[Kennecott’s] permit includes no contingency plans for the most predicted and potentially fatal failures, omitting perhaps the most important mechanism for protecting humans and the environment,” the group writes.

They warn that the permit does not include “discussion of subsidence or crown pillar failure; discussion of catastrophic events or wastewater treatment plant closure for a substantial period of time; contingency for significantly increased inflow to the mine; contingency should the MVAR air filtering system not work; or contingency addressing contaminated water leaking into aquifers from the underground mine.”

This lack of contingency planning, they say, is particularly disturbing and dangerous in view of the fact that an expert retained by the state to examine the mine plan, David Sainsbury of HCItasca Consulting, warned that “analysis techniques used to assess the crown pillar stability of Eagle Mine do not reflect industry best-practice.”

The mine opponents also say that the state improperly allowed DEQ policy advisor Frank Ruswick to issue a final approval of the permits as the state Departments of Environmental Quality and Natural Resources were in the process of merging earlier this year.

Kennecott Eagle Minerals General Manager Jon Cherry did not return a call seeking comment for this story, nor did DNRE mine specialist Joe Maki.

Mary Dettloff of DNRE said that because of the ongoing litigation against the state, it would not be prudent to discuss concerns about how the permits were issued.

By Phil Power | Published: June 27, 2010

From   http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/

Today, TV screens, newspapers and the Internet are  consumed worldwide with the horrendous British Petroleum oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, now believed to be the greatest man-made environmental disaster in our history, if not that of the planet.

But something eerily similar is going on, far from the cameras, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula near the tiny village of Big Bay.

There, a company with a history as one of America’s greatest polluters is now planning to mine for copper and nickel right under one of Michigan’s most uniquely famous trout steams.

The design for this mine has been attacked by independent mining engineers, who see it as all too likely to cave in. If that happens it will kill the trout, and release a pulse of dissolved copper and nickel into a stream flowing into Lake Superior. It takes only tiny amounts of these heavy metals to wipe out fish and plants.

Michigan needs jobs, true. But under the best of scenarios, the mine would employ maybe 200 workers – many from out of state – for less than 10 years. That would  bring big-time industrial development to one of Michigan’s most pristine wilderness spots and threaten long-term tourism, fishing and hiking resources, perhaps forever. Worse, the mine would also defile Eagle Rock, a site sacred to Native Americans. Members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and local residents are camping there, watching in frustration as crews clear-cut the timber from the surrounding area.

What’s going on here, anyway?

Welcome to the so-called Eagle Prospect mine, a project of Kennecott Eagle Minerals Corp., a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, Ltd., a vast London-based mining company. The Rio Tinto board of directors announced last week it would invest $469 million in the mine. That may sound like a large sum, but it’s a pittance compared with the $5-$10 billion worth of ore they believe is there.

The mine will be dug directly under the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River, one of Michigan’s best trout streams. Perhaps more importantly, it’s also one of the world’s last remaining spawning sites for the Coaster Brook Trout, a variant of the native speckled trout that behaves like a steelhead and comes near it in size.

Recent research suggests there are less than 400 of these iconic fish left in the river. Kennecott plans to blast through the Eagle Rock into the ore body which is located in sulfide rock, which when exposed to oxygen and water produces “acid mine drainage,” including sulfuric acid and dissolved heavy metals.

Every such “sulfide mine” ever opened has produced long-term acid mine drainage – some dating back to Roman times.

What if the mine does, in fact, cave in?

Alas, Kennecott has no known disaster plan for managing the resulting environmental damage. The trout will all die, of course — and that may not be the worst of it. Sound like Michigan’s version of the BP disaster in the making?

How could this have come about?

Approval of the mine was recommended by the Michigan Office of Geological Survey, which used to be a division of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and is now part of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The Survey is our equivalent of the now-infamous U.S. Minerals Management Service that oversaw BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The head of the Survey Office’s mining team called the Kennecott project “my baby” and identified the company as “my customer.” During the review process, he admitted  suppressing an expert memorandum that spoke to the risk of a mine collapse. 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. And Governor Jennifer Granholm’s UP representative who helped her formulate her position in support of the mine has left government service to work — you guessed it — for Kennecott.

There have been efforts to stop it, including several lawsuits, one of which came before a state administrative judge who was caught sending a note to a top official at the DEQ asking how he should deal with the resulting appeal.

Permits for the project have been issued by the DEQ and confirmed by the DNR, supposedly in accordance with a newly passed law governing metallic mineral underground mining.

That statute required Kennecott to submit environmental baseline studies on both the actual mine site and also the “affected area,” the nearby land and water that ran the risk of being environmentally compromised if something went wrong.

Kennecott’s permit applications ignored that provision, among others. (Full disclosure: I was a member of the work group that wrote the statute, and I am a member of the Huron Mountain Club, a UP group that is suing to try to halt the mine.)

Kennecott has not yet received a federal permit from the Environmental Protection Agency to inject treated water from the mine into area ground water. Yet the company is proceeding full speed ahead, as if no permit was needed.

And no evidence has been produced that Kennecott has a disaster plan in place to cope with the environmental trouble that many experts see as likely, if not certain.

In the BP/Gulf of Mexico oil spill scandal, it has become clear the agency with regulatory oversight of the offshore drilling industry – U. S. Minerals Management Service – had been “captured” by the very industry it was supposed to oversee.

And we now have seen the result. The Kennecott Eagle Prospect mine is exactly the same kind of disaster just waiting to happen … for similar reasons.

This is a true outrage. But so far nobody seems to be noticing.

Mine opponents have tried to talk with DNR director Rebecca Humphries, but she hasn’t been responding. Concerned readers who might want to make their opinions known can email her at humphriesr@michigan.gov.

***

Editor’s Note: Former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is a longtime observer of Michigan politics and economics and a former chairman of the Michigan chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He is also the founder and president of The Center for Michigan, a bipartisan centrist think-and-do tank which is sponsoring Michigan’s Defining Moment, a public engagement outreach campaign for citizens. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of The Center. He welcomes your comments at ppower@thecenterformichigan.net.

One Comment

1. ken schwartz

Posted June 29, 2010 at 8:32 pm | Permalink

Phil,

I read this article with great interest since I have been blowing this horn around Washtenaw County for over a year and now I’m starting to get a few listeners. Jeff Irwin, Washtenaw County Commissioner and State Rep candidate for the 53th wants to start the process of making much of Marquette and Baraga counties a national park. The Huron Mountain National Park. This new national park in Michigan will complement Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Isle Royale is Michigan’s only national park and it’s a 55 mile boat trip to get there. There’s limited opportunities for seniors or the disabled to enjoy Isle Royale as it is maintained as an undeveloped park. The preservation of the Huron Mountain area will be accessible, and if successfully developed will be enjoyed by all Americans forever.

The positive economic impact of a national park will last generations and Marquette and Baraga will see greatly improved economies. In 1957 the Huron Mountains were selected as the best site along the Great Lakes Shoreline to preserve and some of the most beautiful land east of the Mississippi.

The nickel sulfide mining project in this area will denude and pollute this great part of wild Michigan and will not provide the People of Michigan the economic growth promised and will lose the great cultural and recreational asset of a national park. A few years ago Conde Nast magazine rated the upper peninsula as one of the top ten tourist destinations in the world and last year Liane Hansen of NPR raved about the beauty and food of the U.P. as she toured this vast and unspoiled land.

Phil, I hope you can join Jeff Irwin and myself and push to preserve the Huron Mountains forever. This development will attract thousands each year from Chicago and Minneapolis to spend their money in Michigan admiring this unique world asset. One accident at the Eagle mine could destroy much of Lake Superior just as one accident has despoiled much of the Gulf of Mexico. I hope you continued success to push awareness below the bridge of this potentially devastating mining venture.