Author Archives: aunteedahlia

The Marquette County Road Commission (MCRC), taking advantage of a new law that requires the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to extend a permit processing period at the request of the applicant, has set a decision deadline for October 1 of this year.  If desired, the Road Commission may extend the time frame for review of the CR 595/haul road proposal to a year from the date the DEQ deemed the application to be administratively complete, which would be mid-January, 2013.

Although Engineer-Manager Jim Iwanicki of the MCRC has said there is no agreement with Rio Tinto for funding construction of CR 595, Eagle Mine president Adam Burley stated in an April 2011 letter that they wished to amend their agreement with the Road Commission by committing to pay for 595, adding that they would reconsider if construction had not commenced prior to May 2013.  Since there are no other identified funding sources, lack of support from Rio Tinto would leave the County with a $60-$80 million dollar tab that they couldn’t pay, effectively tabling the project. Continue reading →

Keweenaw Bay Indian Community’s Mining Technical Review Team has submitted formal comments on the permit application for proposed stream and wetland fill for the Copperwood Project in Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula.

Orvana’s tailings disposal site would have a footprint of 346 acres and would fill in approximately 52 acres of wetlands and 13,672 feet of streams.  The tailings disposal facility is predicted to release between 24-62 million gallons of leachate into the environment per year.  Once mining ceases and the water treatment facility is decommissioned, heavy metals may migrate into soils and creeks and eventually Lake Superior.

According to KBIC’s Review Team, the applicant has not demonstrated that they have avoided and minimized negative impacts to the extent possible or given adequate consideration to viable alternatives.

Mining expert Jack Parker takes it a step further, stating that the recent hearing on the wetlands permits was premature.  As with the Eagle Mine permit application, Parker contends that the mining permits are illegal, if accepted, because the application was not processed properly.

“The mining permits must be in place before we go on to consider those environmental issues,” Parker said.  “Orvana made very significant changes to their mine plan and in tailings disposal, and those substitutions were accepted by the DEQ without public hearings and comments and responses to comments.”

KBIC is requesting that the permits for wetland and stream fill be denied.

KBIC_CommentsOnWetlands&Streams_CopperwoodProject_7-8-12

Please click here for Keweenaw Now’s coverage of the June 28 hearings:

http://keweenawnow.blogspot.com/2012/07/mdeq-hearing-on-orvana-copperwood-air.html

http://keweenawnow.blogspot.com/2012/07/orvana-copperwood-public-hearingpart-2.html

On Friday, June 8, Marquette County residents sat out a night of intermittent hail and high winds, keeping a watchful eye on both the sky and the weather channel.  Family members called each other to check in, worried about possible power outages and the potential for property damage.

But what really had people spooked was the tornado warning.  The entire Upper Peninsula averages only about one tornado per year, and “Yoopers” generally consider themselves to be  immune to natural disasters, taking blizzards as a matter of course.  Understandably, then, tornado warnings are received with a mixture of skepticism and alarm.

By morning, this report was circulating:  NOAA POSSIBLE TORNADO REPORTED AT EAGLE MINE. DEBRIS BLOWN AROUND, POWER LINE DOWN, NUMEROUS TREES DOWN.

A subsequent survey of the area by an  National Weather Service representative  confirmed the touchdown,  estimating that the tornado traveled as far as eight miles and was as wide as 200 feet, with wind speeds of up to 95 mph.  According to local media outlets, impacts to the mine site consisted of scattered ventilation tubes, several fallen trees and a section of crumpled fencing–but the tornado traveled on the ground for at least a mile before arriving at the northwest corner of the site.

Yesterday, some friends and I went out to have a look for ourselves, having to walk at least the last half mile due to downed trees on the road.   In fact, the twister seemed to have followed this dirt road, with few trees damaged except in this narrow corridor.  Some were uprooted, some twisted and snapped, and others had their tops broken off.

As for clean-up, it did not appear that any had been done, except to drag trees off of the perimeter fencing at the mine site.  We cannot see beyond the berm.

SALT LAKE CITY, June 7, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Members of the United Steelworkers (USW) employed in the United States who mine the metal used in Olympic medals are expressing their solidarity with locked-out Quebec workers. USW Local 392 wants Rio Tinto “Off the Podium” for this summer’s London 2012 Olympics.

To continue reading, please click here:  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-workers-mining-metal-for-olympic-medals-also-want-rio-tinto-off-the-podium-2012-06-07

Powell Township  is asking Rio Tinto to set aside public relations gimmicks and focus on objective, third-party air monitoring for the Eagle mine  and future projects affecting their township and  the surrounding region.

According to a June 3 editorial by Gene Champagne, member of Concerned Citizens of Big Bay, the Powell Township Board has unanimously endorsed a resolution focusing on these key points:

• It asks the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and/or the federal Environmental Protection Agency to develop an air quality monitoring program in our region.

• Asks that air monitors be installed at present and future mine sites, within the community of Big Bay, and at any other sites within Powell Township these agencies deem appropriate. Continue reading →

A series of letters recently published in the Marquette Mining Journal reflects ongoing and insistent objections to Rio Tinto’s activities in the Upper Peninsula, particularly with regard to the not-yet operational Eagle Mine Project.

Big Bay resident Carla Champagne wrote of a trip to London to address the Rio Tinto shareholders meeting and network with activists and government leaders. ”All of them were well aware of Rio Tinto’s legacy of human and workers’ rights abuses, environmental degradation and disregard for the law,” Champagne said.

Residents of Big Bay, and environmental groups including the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve and Concerned Citizens of Big Bay, are seeking additional monitoring of both air and water quality near the Eagle site.   Hydrological studies conducted prior to the permitting of the Eagle mine are said to have been inadequate and incomplete.  Concerns about air quality have arisen recently due to Rio Tinto’s plans to remove the filter from the exhaust stack situated near the Salmon Trout River.

Continue reading →

Conservation Minnesota, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy have announced a coordinated effort to raise public awareness about the risks of mining in sulfide ore bodies.

These risks are especially great when the proposed projects are in water-rich areas, such as the Great Lakes Basin, but it is a world-wide problem.  A 2010 BusinessReport article identified acid mine drainage (AMD) as the single biggest threat to South Africa’s environment, affecting food supplies and the economy. And according to ContinuityCentral, The international business continuity information portal, the United Nations has stated that AMD is “the second biggest environmental threat facing the world, with only global climate change being more significant.” Continue reading →

The Huron Mountain Club has asked a federal judge to grant a preliminary injunction to halt work at the Eagle Mine project on the Yellow Dog Plains, citing numerous regulatory failures by the Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior.  A hearing will be held in Grand Rapids on June 6.

For more information, please click here:  http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/575588/Club-files-legal-challenge-against-Eagle-Mine-project.html?nav=5006

http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/575543/Last-chance-beckons.html?nav=5067

Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa recently collaborated on a Statement of Information submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples documenting concerns about the activities of multinational mining corporations in Anishinabe territories.  The Statement of Information is available here: http://www.badriver-nsn.gov/images/storie/docs/activities_anishinaabeg.pdf.

On May 2, members of the Bad River Band Council attended  a consultation with the UN Special Rapporteur in Mission, South Dakota.  Representatives from Keweenaw Bay Indian Community plan to attend another consultation with the UN Special Rapporteur later this month.

NWF continues to work nationally, including here in the Great Lakes region, to close Clean Water Act loopholes that are allowing millions of tons of mining waste to be deposited in our surface waters.  Please sign on to the attached letter (addressed to EPA, ACE and CEQ) and send the message that Great Lakes citizens care.

The undersigned individuals and organizations are writing to urge you to close two loopholes in the Clean Water Act (CWA) that allow sulfide (hardrock) mines to discharge untreated tailings and other wastes directly into the nation’s rivers, lakes, and wetlands.

A mineral rush is underway across the upper Great Lakes region.  The waters, forests, and wildlife of the Lake Superior basin share their homelands with deposits of copper, nickel, gold, uranium, and other metals.  One mine is already under contruction less than eight miles from Lake Superior beneath one of its tributaries.  A second new mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has been permitted less than one mile from Lake Superior.  A large sulfide mine is proposed a short distance from the renowned Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.  Exploration is spreading like wildfire, fueled by worldwide demand and increasing metals prices.

Please click here for the complete letter:  Protect the Great Lakes from CWA loopholes & mining

Sign on by leaving your name and organization, city and state, in the comment section below.  Thank you!