July 25, 2012 (from Laura Gauger)
I am pleased to inform you that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin has ruled in favor of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council (WRPC), the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and myself in our Clean Water Act case against Flambeau Mining Company (FMC) for illegal discharges of pollutants to public waters at the Flambeau Mine site near Ladysmith, Wisconsin. FMC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kennecott/Rio Tinto.
(To read the press release, please click here: Flambeau court ruling
In terms of my personal involvement as a plaintiff in the case and the events leading up to it, it’s been a long road (about 5 years!) To be honest, there were times when I was ready to “throw in the towel.” Yet, at those critical junctures, someone always seemed to “appear out of nowhere” to help me keep going. I would like to acknowledge 19 such people who may not even know the extent to which they helped me, each in their own unique way:
Jamie Saul
Marc Fink
David Chambers
Kendra Zamzow
Ken Parejko
Lori Andresen
Pat and Bob Tammen
Harold and JoAnn Flater
Pamela Nesbit
Bob Hollis
Rosa Musket
Margaret Comfort
Peter Sessa
Lori Smith
Greg Furtman
Richard Sloat
Steve Garske
I would also like to acknowledge the fine team of lawyers and scientific consultants who believed in this case and did their best to deliver the kind of truthful information to the Court that was needed for a just decision to be rendered for the environment. Their expertise, their passion for environmental justice and, on a personal note, their understanding way and kindness shown in “working with me” on finances will not be forgotten. These are truly good people:
Law Firm of McGillivray, Westerberg & Bender (Madison, WI)
Attorney James Saul
Attorney Christa Westerberg
Attorney Pamela McGillivray
Attorney David Bender
Center for Biological Diversity (Duluth, MN)
Attorney Marc Fink
Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, Lewis & Clark Law School (Portland, OR)
Attorney Kevin Cassidy
Attorney Dan Mensher
Center for Science in Public Participation (Bozeman, MT)
Dr. David Chambers
RJN Environmental Services (Oregon, WI)
Robert Nauta, P.G
Finally, I extend my thanks to three fine organizations that provided financial assistance, in the form of grants, to help “pay the bills”:
Freshwater Future (Petoskey, MI)
Indigenous Environmental Network (Bemidji, MN)
Western Mining Action Network (Billings, MT)
To these individuals and ALL who believed in and supported this effort to protect our public waters, I say THANK YOU. This is YOUR victory, too.
With respect and thanks,
Laura Gauger
Laura Gauger
Duluth, MN 55805
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for having the courage to stay in the battle to fight the corporations that are destroying our waters. There are not adequate words to display my joy but I will try.
Today as the sun falls into its celestial journey to the other side of life, the song that has been filled with garble from mistreatment of the tears from above so weakly touching our ears will now carry joyous praise on gentle breezes as the trees dance in celebration. The Water is heaving with a silent breath of rejoice to be able to ever so snail like, assume the monstrous efforts to heal.
Great teamwork team! And this after DNR made serious efforts in 1991-92. They thought, we hoped, that they had tightened up the permits enough.
Tremendous job! Thank you so much! We can hope that this decision will make it that much harder for the corporations with no interest beyond their short term bottom line to devastate any more of Wisconsin’s precious waters by further weakening the legal protections in place here.
I am a different Joanne from the comment above.
In my own soliciting of signatures to petition against sulfide mining, I tried to argue that the Flambeau mine was not an exemplary example of successful mining. Now, maybe the news of this ruling will spread and correct that fallacy.
I also want to point out that my source for the news on this subject was on Michele Bourdieu’s blog-site, http://keweenawnow.blogspot.com/, which covered this story comprehensively through the years.