Three federal agencies have notified the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) that Rio Tinto’s haul road application must follow the law or permits should not be issued for the project at all.
Compiling comments from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a strong rebuke of the road project, insisting that it does not follow long-standing federal water protection laws.
Woodland Road LLC (formed by Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company – a Rio Tinto subsidiary – A. Lindberg & Sons, John Jilbert, and the Michigan Forest Products Council) proposes to build a 22-mile all season road that would connect U.S. 41/M-28, in the Humboldt area, with the Triple A Road, in Champion Township. The group says the project will create 125 jobs during a two-year construction phase, and support 12 maintenance crew positions in coming years.
The proposed route would cause over 27 acres of direct impacts to wetlands as well as 23 stream crossings. The proposed project area covers over 184,000 acres of land.
According to John Marshall, chair of the Lake Superior Community Partnership’s transportation planning committee, the Woodland Road would offer “a viable alternative for mining, logging, and industrial trucks to efficiently reach major highway, rail and shipping systems,” and the “…Woodland Road is a responsible solution that provides area employers with an option, and lessens truck impacts where others travel.”
But is the Woodland Road truly a responsible solution?
In its recent letter, the EPA expressed concern that “the quality of the aquatic resources being impacted is not appropriately quantified,” and that the “supporting documentation identifies rare wetland communities such as bogs, bog lakes, and wet meadows within the project area,” but does not mention the amounts of these rare aquatic resources.
Other concerns mentioned in the letter include indirect impacts to aquatic resources such as increased runoff, the introduction of pollutants from vehicular traffic, pollution related to winter road maintenance, the introduction of invasive species, and the introduction of further development along a new all season highway through one of the last remaining wild places in the region.
But, perhaps the most obvious problem was pointed out by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Rio Tinto claims the road is needed “to construct a multi-purpose road to connect key industrial, commercial, and recreational areas in northwest Marquette County to US-41.” The Corps notes that Rio Tinto’s project description “does not adequately depict the purpose of the project” and that a more direct and accurate description of the project shouldn’t dodge the primary reason the company is trying to build the new road: “to haul ore between the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company mine site and the Humboldt Mill processing site.” This criticism was shared by many concerned citizens at a February 10 public hearing.
According to the Army Corps, “if the road is required to connect the proposed nickel mine at Eagle Rock with the milling operation and tailings disposal facility at Humboldt, these actions should be evaluated under one project. . .our regulations require a holistic view of a project, and the public and the process are best served by evaluating projects in their entirety.”
Although paying for the entire road project itself, Rio Tinto has actively tried to pursuade the public that the haul road is only indirectly related to its mining plans.
Last September, Rio Tinto’s chief operating officer for the haul road project, Ken Wooley, insisted that the road was not specifically for the proposed EAgle Mine: “The road is not tied to the mine. This is truly a multi-use road.”
The PR has been working.
At a Marquette County Road Commission meeting in October, Mark Holmes, a concerned citizen, stated, “As of right now it [the road] has nothing to do with the mine, although in the future it might.”
The Army Corps also insisted that Rio Tinto must disclose its full plans for the road:
“The MDNRE should request information from the applicant about other potential mining projects which could be expected to be served by the proposed Woodland Road in the foreseeable future, including expansion of the current proposed mine at Eagle Rock.”
The haul road project is estimated to cost Rio Tinto approximately $50 million. The company expects the road to be in service by late 2013, after two years of construction.
However, the recent federal objection may slow the process down. The EPA has given the DNRE 90 days to either deny the permit or work with Rio Tinto to make the project comply with the law. According to the EPA’s letter, if their objections are addressed, the federal government will allow the DNRE to grant Rio Tinto a permit. If the permit is not denied by the DNRE and the federal objections are not withdrawn, Rio Tinto would have to obtain a Section 404 Clean Water Act permit from the Army Corps of Engineers before the project can move forward.
LSMN
Eve Divine
doncorvette
Watc this project close. Rio Tinto don’t do anyhing for the benefit of the coumunites. They ar looking out for their self and their profit. They will sugar coat all the bullshit (and they are good at it) so they can stick in your a**. And they will do it if you let them. They have no regaurd for the lawsor anything else. They got a lot of money and they seem to enjoy screwing people for profit. Research their history. When Rio Tinto was first formed in I think 1873 they screwed the spanish goverment out of a gold mine for peenien on the dollar. And have been doing ever since. Right now they are screwing about 550 miners out of a job because they locked them out. Because they would not sign a unreasonable contract. One of the major factors in my thoughts was the part that the union give up their rights to the national labor relations board.Which is really BS. If you are interested in looking into Rio Tintos history go to boraxminers.com . Click on links and can go around the world. That is where I found this web site.
Good Luck
Rick
Rio Tinto Workers Admit Accepting Bribes in China
SHANGHAI — Three employees of Rio Tinto, the British-Australian mining giant, agreed to plead guilty Monday to taking bribes while working for the company in China, making stunning confessions on the opening day of their three-day trial here.
The employees, including Stern Hu, a senior executive and Australian citizen, admitted to having received several million dollars in bribes, according to their lawyers. A fourth employee is also expected to plead guilty.
The proceedings were largely closed to the public, but the Australian consul general in Shanghai said that Mr. Hu — the focus of the case — had admitted in court Monday to receiving some of the $1 million in bribes prosecutors accused him of having taken while at Rio Tinto.
Mr. Hu and the three Chinese employees were detained last July in a high-profile corruption case that at the time rocked the global steel industry and strained diplomatic relations between China and Australia.
After nine months in detention, Mr. Hu and his three colleagues are on trial this week at the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Court, accused of having accepted about $12 million in bribes and also of having stolen commercial secrets from Chinese state-owned companies.
Each of the defendants could face up to 10 years in jail if they plead guilty to accepting bribes, one of their lawyers said.
In a statement after the opening day of the trial Monday, the Australian consul general in Shanghai, Tom Connor, said Mr. Hu had made “some admissions” and had acknowledged taking some of the money.
Zhang Peihong, a lawyer for another Rio Tinto employee standing trial, Wang Yong, said his client had agreed to plead guilty to accepting about $1 million in bribes — much less than the $10 million he is accused of taking.
A spokesman for Rio Tinto declined comment Monday.
The guilty pleas, which are expected to be formally entered Tuesday, are an abrupt turnabout. Australia had pressed China for months, demanding a fair and transparent legal process and hinting that the employees might have been framed. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia also warned recently that “the world will be watching” the trial.
And for much of the past year, Rio Tinto, one of the world’s biggest producers of iron ore, has defended its employees, saying the company has no evidence they engaged in wrongdoing.
The four employees were initially accused of espionage, which would have fallen under a tough Chinese state secrets law, and of causing China “enormous economic losses.” But in August, the four employees were formally charged with lesser offenses: bribery and stealing commercial secrets.
The trial focused only on the bribery issue Monday. On Tuesday or Wednesday, the court is expected to shift its focus to the commercial secrets charges.
Many Western executives doing business in China have said that they worried that the Rio Tinto employees — Mr. Hu, Mr. Wang, Ge Minqiang and Liu Caikui — might have been unfairly detained because of business disputes with government-owned companies and that other foreign executives could be targeted.
The timing of the case seemed ominous. Shortly before the July detentions, the Chinese steel industry association had complained about the skyrocketing price of iron ore and had criticized Rio Tinto and other foreign suppliers for a breakdown in contract talks on iron ore prices.
The detentions also came after Rio Tinto had scrapped plans to accept a $19.5 billion investment from Chinalco, one of the biggest state-owned Chinese mining groups.
Beijing has said that this was a criminal case and has pressed Australian officials and others to avoid “politicizing” the case.
Yet because Australia is one of the leading suppliers of iron ore to China — iron ore worth billions of dollars and intended for the Chinese booming steel industry — the case has become a concern for the top leaders of both countries.
Legal experts said the July detentions and initial allegations that the four Rio Tinto employees were stealing state secrets had also suggested the government might have been using the case to punish Rio Tinto.
Western executives said they were alarmed because in the days after the detentions were announced last July, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry had described the accused as spies, and the Chinese state-owned media published articles saying it was the Rio Tinto employees who were bribing government officials to get access to sensitive documents.
Yet in the nine months since the four were detained, the Chinese authorities have announced no other arrests of steel industry officials for bribing Rio Tinto employees or trading in government secrets.
Prosecutors reduced the charges to bribery and stealing commercial trade secrets after Australian and even American officials said they were concerned about the case and what it would mean for foreign executives working here.
Jerome Cohen, a professor at New York University and an expert on China’s legal system, says he is troubled by the closed nature of the proceedings Monday, and the government’s attempt to turn this into a bribery case.
“The first thing they did to quell foreign protests was to reduce it to trade secrets,” Mr. Cohen said in a telephone interview. “The second was to discredit the defendants in the eyes of their employers. It was a brilliant move. But there are a lot of unanswered questions. A bribe for what? What did they do for it? Was it with Rio Tinto’s knowledge?”
Since then Australian officials and Rio Tinto executives have been more cautious in their remarks about the case.
On Friday, Rio Tinto said that it had formed a joint venture with Chinalco to develop an iron ore project in Africa.
On Monday, Rio Tinto’s chief executive, Tom Albanese, spoke at the China Development Forum in Beijing and pledged to work with China to find mineral resources in China and overseas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/asia/23riotinto.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&cf=all&ncl=dxqVkdYFDo3aAZMO1dVz4eESRughM
I just don’t understand how this project even got accepted for this area or how this company even is allowed to continue operating.
[...] future mining activity that would utilize the new road needed to be addressed. As reported on the Lake Superior Mining News blog, the US Army Corps of Engineers had problems with company claims the road wouldn’t be [...]