Whether or not it ever was truly “deferred,” Kennecott-Rio Tinto’s Eagle Mine, in the Huron Mountains of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula may become a top priority for the London miner next year.
According to the Financial Times, Rio Tinto intends to spend $5 – $6 billion on project development in 2010.
Where’s the demand for upper Great Lakes metal coming from? According to CEO Tom Albanese the company’s three primary markets for metals are “China, China – and then again, I would say, China.”
Speaking in London, Albanese stressed that the company’s relationship with China is of “critical importance to Rio Tinto.”
LSMN
teresabertossi
doncorvette
It’s outrageous that the state of Michigan completely ignores its own water, wetlands, and land protection laws, and falls for the “big money” very little of which will benefit the state or local economy. We wonder who is actually benefiting from this huge deal. Certainly not the citizens of the Upper Peninsula!
Judy,
I agree.
The Director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Steven Chester, said, last September, “We simply don’t have the kind of funding we need to adequately implement the laws we’re required to implement.”
This strongly suggests the State is incapable of enforcing a company like Kennecott.
Last June, in court, the DEQ’s coordinator for review of Kennecott’s Eagle Project, Joe Maki, acknowledged, under oath, that niether he, nor his team, followed a central tenent of Michigan’s new metallic mining law (the court transcript is here – http://lakesuperiorminingnews.net/reports/ – ; an article on it is here – http://lakesuperiorminingnews.net/2008/10/28/michigan-fails-to-follow-own-law-in-kennecott-approval/).
This seems to strongly suggest that the State is unwilling to follow the law.
And where are our elected officials? It seems they are all on board at this point, with their mouths (and minds) shut.