After addressing pollution concerns at the former Cliffs-Dow site, the Marquette City Commission took public comment on a proposed anti-ballot initiative resolution [read Marquette City Resolution Opposing Water Mining Ballot Initiative]. The “MiWater” ballot initiative would place greater restrictions on metallic sulfide and uranium mining activities in Michigan. Despite offering unanimous support for the resolution, commissioners presented a fairly diverse argument in their opposition to the MiWater ballot initiative. The majority of citizens providing public comment outlined various arguments in support of the ballot effort.
New commissioner David Saint-Onge questioned why the City was considering the resolution.
“As a new guy on the commission, I’m not so sure why this issue comes before us, to be honest with you, why we’re taking the amount of time that we’ve taken to address this issue – not that it’s not important,” said Saint-Onge. “I do believe that there are some portions of the resolution that’s being offered this evening that are unnecessarily inflammatory.”
Saint-Onge said that, since the resolution was introduced he could not, according to City guidelines, abstain from a vote. The seemingly reluctant St. Onge endorsed the resolution with a quiet “yes” vote.
According to November 30 City Commission meeting minutes, the anti-ballot resolution was introduced in order to support “State Senator Prusi’s efforts to defend mining in the Upper Peninsula.” In a November 11 news release, endorsed by four other Upper Peninsula politicians, Prusi claimed the MiWater ballot would “BAN any future mining,” and would create “economic devastation for the families that live and work in the Upper Peninsula.” Although the proposed MiWater ballot would act as an amendment to legislation governing only metallic sulfide mining (the ballot would also require similar legislation for uranium mining), Prusi’s claim was invoked by two City commissioners.
Mayor Pro-Tem John DePetro, who introduced the anti-ballot resolution, suggested that the ballot effort was a “guise” that “would affect and stop future mining in the Upper Peninsula the rest of our lives.”
Commissioner Frederick Stonehouse agreed, claiming the ballot would “have a very negative effect on all mining in the Upper Peninsula, be it iron, copper, nickel, even limestone.”
During public comment, building contractor, Jorma Lankinen and Marquette resident, Tony Retaskie used rhetoric similar to that in Senator Prusi’s statement.
“The Michigan water ballot proposal is really an anti-economic, anti-jobs, anti-mining and anti-Upper Peninsula proposal, and it’s disguised under a clean water initiative derived from Grosse Pointe,” said Retaskie.
Retired professor, Jon Saari disagreed, saying that Retaskie’s comments represent “the whole hammer blow of what we’re going to be seeing in this debate over the next year.”
“Our public discourse, these days, is abysmal,” said Saari. “This Michigan water initiative is being presented as anti-UP, anti-UP economy, culture and future, and a trick by a bunch of Grosse Pointe elitists.”
Gene Champagne, spokesperson for Concerned Citizens of Big Bay (CCBB), introduced himself as from “Big Bay up the road, not Big Bay below the bridge, at Grosse Pointe, as some of our officials like to point out in the media.”
Champagne explained that CCBB introduced a resolution in 2003 or 2004 calling for independent hydrology studies.
“That resolution called for a third party, independent hydrology study on the Yellow Dog Plains before any hardrock or sulfide mining takes place,” said Champagne. “The hydrology is not a guise; it’s been at the forefront of this issue since the beginning.”
In 2005, Marquette County Board Chairman Gerald Corkin wrote to express similar concerns to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality:
“The Marquette County Board of Commissioners supports…recent requests for a United States Geological Survey (USGS) Baseline and Hydrologic Survey of the Yellow Dog Plains region. This request has the support of Marquette County residents and local government officials, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, as well as State Senator Michael Prusi.”
The Marquette City Commission unanimously passed a resolution supporting independent hydrology studies and was supported by Marquette County and a number of townships.
In his support for the anti-ballot resolution, Commissioner Stonehouse noted that only three percent of Michigan’s voting population lived in the Upper Peninsula.
“We effectively have no functional voice on politics in this state – we are simply overwhelmed by the numbers,” said Stonehouse.
Commissioner Robert Niemi also took a practical view of the ballot initiative.
“The issue is too complex to do by initiative,” said Niemi. “The future of the mining industry is important to the UP and the vagaries of a political campaign are not the way to decide the question.”
Some comments in support of the resolution claimed disastrous economic consequences if the ballot proposal moved forward.
Amy Clickner, CEO of the Lake Superior Community Partnership (City commissioner and former Cleveland-Cliffs manager of public affairs, Don Ryan, helped form the group), along with some influential building contractors one of the main supporters of Rio Tinto’s Eagle Mine proposal, claimed that a water ballot proposal would threaten all other aspects of Michigan’s economy.
“Once we start this slippery slope, where does it end?” questioned Clickner. “Is the next ballot initiative what we can do in timber, is it what we can do in agriculture, is it what we can do in recreation?”
Jon LaSalle, chairman of Citizens to Protect Michigan Jobs, claimed that, if the proposed ballot were passed, “The economic consequences of all future mining would be horrendous.”
“There’s no proven contamination anywhere in this subject matter,” said LaSalle.
However, according to the US Forest Service, at least ten-thousand miles of rivers in the American West have been destroyed by metallic sulfide mining operations. In September 2008, one of Rio Tinto’s largest shareholders, the Norwegian government, divested and called the company “grossly unethical” for its operations at a controversial mine in West Papua, currently under Indonesian military control. In a statement, Norway’s Council on Ethics said that acid drainage from metallic sulfide mines is “considered one of the most serious mining-related environmental problems across the world.”
Promoted as a “citizen” campaign, the spokesperson for Citizens to Protect Michigan Jobs is Deb Muchmore. For years, Muchmore has been Rio Tinto’s lead spokesperson in efforts to open the proposed Eagle Mine.
LaSalle also said that claims of future uranium mining in Michigan were unfounded.
“Today, earth scientists agree that no one has found a commercially-viable uranium ore body in Michigan,” said LaSalle.
Retired Northern Michigan University chemistry professor, Gail Griffith, disagrees. According to Griffith, since 2004 the price of uranium has dropped from $139 a pound to less than $50 a pound, making uranium operations that may be economically viable in the future not viable today.
“If well water in the Jacobsville Sandstone formation is already contaminated with uranium it seems reasonable to develop stringent rules for uranium mining to protect these waters and to do it now,” said Griffith.
According to Michigan Messenger a joint venture between uranium giant, Cameco, and Bitteroot Resources, has been actively exploring the Upper Peninsula since 2003, spending over $700 thousand on uranium exploration in the first nine months of 2009 alone. In a report issued to shareholders in July, the company noted that it had “identified several areas which warrant additional exploration.”
Commissioner Stonehouse seemed to agree with Griffith.
“If it only prevented uranium mining I would likely support it and would be the first one to sign the petition,” said Stonehouse. “If the issue were only about mining on the Yellow Dog Plains and its sensitivity to Lake Superior, that’s a different story too.”
Stonehouse said that a number of issues are affecting the Great Lakes that are more significant that metallic sulfide mining and cited his belief that Asian carp “will decimate a seven billion dollar fishing industry.
“From an environmental perspective that is a disaster of biblical proportions,” said Stonehouse.
For additional video from the meeting, please go to YouTube.
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