According to Mines and Communities:

Letter from Menominee Prosecutor to Michigan Attorney General requesting information on mineral rights claimed by VMS Development

HudBay burns a home to the ground while forcibly evicting citizens in Guatemala; James Rodriguez

• On September 27, 2009, fears of forced violent evictions of several Mayan communities located near the Fenix mining project sparked a series of community protests.

• In the early afternoon of September 27, 2009, Adolfo Ich was with his wife at his house in La Uníon when he heard gunshots being fired from the direction of mine buildings, located not far from his house. Adolfo went to find out what was going on, to warn people to stay back and to see if he could help restore calm. He was not carrying any weapons.

• When Adolfo Ich arrived, private security forces of the mine recognized him as a prominent community leader and appeared to invite him to speak with them about the community protests.

• As Adolfo Ich approached, approximately a dozen armed security forces surrounded him, beat him and hacked at him with a machete, before shooting Adolfo in the head at close range. Adolfo Ich died of his wounds shortly after.

The building mine security dragged Adolfo's body after killing him

For more information about the lawsuit go to http://www.chocversushudbay.com/about

According to EPA statistics, PolyMet’s “draft environmental impact statement,” (DEIS) is incredibly incompetent.  Less than 0.4% of all such reviews obtain such a bottom-of-the-barrel rating.

Disturbingly, PolyMet’s amateurish DEIS was conducted by a firm working with Aquila Resources to develop a zinc-gold mine on the Menominee River, in Michigan.  In December Al Trippel, an environmental consultant with Environmental Resources Management, gave a presentation on PolyMet’s DEIS that outlined environmental concerns related to the review as well as unrelated information claiming the project would benefit the regional economy.  Trippel has worked with Aquila as a consultant since at least 2004 and conducted studies necessary for that company’s own environmental impact statement.

From the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness (March 5):

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency gave the PolyMet mine draft environmental impact statement the lowest possible rating the agency can assign such a document. Citing incomplete work and unacceptable pollution, the EPA assigned the project its “Environmentally Unsatisfactory – Inadequate” rating.

The rating highlights the extraordinary threats represented by the mine to clean water. The agency does not assign such ratings very often. In the past 23 years, the EPA has reviewed 11,834 EISs and gave the rating it gave to PolyMet to only 41, or 0.3 percent. In the upper Midwest region, the agency gave the rating to just 0.2 percent of the 844 EISes it reviewed.

Yesterday, PolyMet released a statement seeking to control the damage the EPA’s rating has done to its credibility. Unfortunately, the company included a statement in their press release that is blatantly false:

“The EPA’s rating of the draft EIS as unsatisfactory appears to have been based on the ‘proposed project’ without  consideration of alternatives or mitigations discussed in the document.”

This is false. In page two of the EPA’s letter, the agency states:

“This rating applies to the Proposed Action, the Mine Site Alternative and the Tailings Basin Alternative.”

There is no way to excuse such a misleading statement as PolyMet has made. Rather than offering specific details that respond to the EPA’s criticisms, the company has chosen only to muddy the waters.

By Eartha Jane Melzer, Michigan Messenger

Upper Peninsula lawmakers are railing against a ballot measure to create standards for uranium mining, claiming that no uranium ore has been discovered in Michigan. However, a Canadian uranium mining company says it’s found uranium in the U.P., scientists have warned that its uranium exploration could harm groundwater, and the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department is warning that residential wells in several counties already have elevated levels of the radioactive metal.

In a statement this week, Sen. Mike Prusi (D-Ishpeming), Sen. Jason Allen (R-Traverse City), Rep. Mike Lahti (D-Hancock), Rep. Steve Lindberg (D-Marquette) and Rep. Judy Nerat (D-Wallace) accused sponsors of a proposed 2010 ballot measure on mining of talking about uranium mining in order to scare people and destroy the mining industry.

“No ‘uranium mining’ activity has ever existed,” the lawmakers stated, “nor has any uranium ore been discovered, in our state.”

However, according to a July 2009 financial report from Bitterroot Resources Ltd., a 17-hole uranium exploration drilling program concluded last December “identified several areas which warrant additional exploration.” The company said it spent $717,403 on Michigan uranium exploration in the first nine months of 2009.

On the sections of the company website devoted to its Upper Peninsula uranium exploration Bitterroot states that early drilling “encountered a 0.6-metre interval containing 75 ppm U, including two 0.12-metre intervals containing more than 100 ppm U. These intervals are significant as they confirm that uranium-bearing fluids have been mobile within the Jacobsville Basin.”

The presence of uranium in this area is also known to local health officials. The Western Upper Peninsula Health Department has issued a uranium advisory.

“Scattered drinking water sources in the Western Upper Peninsula have been found to contain uranium in amounts that exceed the federal Maximum Contaminant Level,” the health department states. “The source of the uranium may be the shale deposits that run inconsistently through the Jacobsville Sandstone formation. Water supplies with radioactivity have been found in Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Keweenaw, and Ontonagon Counties.”

The department states that uranium-laced water may be associated with kidney damage and cancer and that people with wells constructed in the Jacobsville Sandstone formation should have their water tested for uranium.

Last year the National Forest Service granted permits for uranium exploration in the Ottawa National Forest and spokeswoman Lee Ann Atkinson told Michigan Messenger at the time that 50 test wells were authorized.

During the public comment period on this uranium exploration proposal by Trans Superior Resources, a subsidiary of Bitterroot Resources Ltd., Todd Warner, natural resources director for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, noted that the company’s plan to bury drill cuttings on Forest Service land could result in radioactive compounds leaching into area groundwater.

“If a uranium ore body is disturbed in its natural geological setting, radium and polonium will inevitably be released into our environment,” Warner wrote in comments entered into the record. “The Forest Service has not noted that any additional or added precautions or testing is being required due to the potential or likely presence of uranium, radium, polonium and other radioactive elements.”

Because of the risk of chemical reactions that can cause minerals to contaminate the water supply, metallic mining requires permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, said Hal Fitch, director of the agency’s Office of Geological Survey. But due to what Fitch called “a weakness in the statute,” exploratory mineral wells in the rocky western half of the Upper Peninsula are exempt from permit requirements.

In the case of the uranium test wells in the national forests, the DEQ will visit and observe operations after being voluntarily contacted by the mining company, Fitch said.

The Michigan Save Our Water Committee says U.P. lawmakers are mischaracterizing their proposed ballot initiative.

“We are not talking about banning future uranium mining,” said spokesman Duncan Campbell. “We don’t have any regulations covering uranium, all we are asking is that we have some regulations to cover uranium.”

Read more of Eartha J. Melzer’s articles at Michigan Messenger.

Mining in our area? Get informed.  What is at risk?

(1) US Representative Bart Stupak: “Sulfide mining, like that of the Yellow Dog mining project, will create potentially irreversible environmental damage to the region and lasting health ailments to area residents”.  The mine Mr. Stupak refers to is the same type of mine that could be along the Menominee River next to Shakey Lakes County Park.  Obviously Representative Stupak would not have made his statement without researching the issue of a “massive sulfide ore”, the type found here.  The federal EPA says: A.) this type of mining is the #1 cause of acid mine drainage. B.)  Acid Mine Drainage has destroyed tens of thousands of miles of rivers, countless lakes, streams and made drinking and ground water toxic. C.)  Acid Mine Drainage is uncontrollable and lasts for thousands of years.

(2) The Chairman of the board of directors for Aquila Resources was on the board of directors for “Pegasus Gold, Inc.” Pegasus Gold, Inc. was sued by the State of Montana because Pegasus Gold caused a great deal of water pollution (heavy metals, cyanide, etc).  Make Note: Pegasus Gold used the same process that Aquila Resources said they would like to use here in Menominee County!  Pegasus Gold lost their lawsuit and agreed to pay approximately $34-million dollars in clean up costs. Instead of paying the agreed upon judgment, Pegasus Gold simply went out of business.  But not before they paid a reported $5-million dollars in bonuses to the persons at Pegasus Gold.

That makes sense; reward the people responsible for causing the pollution.  Prior to liquidating, Pegasus Gold transferred assets from Pegasus to a new company.  This transfer included other gold mines.  This new company enjoys large profits with none of the liabilities or apparently obligations of Pegasus Gold. Pegasus Gold went out of business in 1998.  That is not that long ago.  Definitely not long enough ago that the science could have improved for use at a gold/zinc mine here in Menominee County.

Clean up costs for what Pegasus Gold walked away from is now estimated to be at over one hundred million dollars ($100MM) and experts say pollution left will last for over 1000-years.  But, because the company went out of business the clean up costs are now the responsibility of the local government(s) and US taxpayers.

Menominee River; Photo courtesy Carol Henriksen

At the township’s regular meeting, Aquila President and CEO Tom Quigley told the board that the company expects to receive mining permits from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in 2010 and begin construction the following year.  According to Quigley, the company plans to spend an estimated $100 million to open the project that would employ between 100 and 200 workers over a projected 12-year lifespan.

There’s just one hitch.  Most residents seem to be concerned with Aquila’s plans to use cyanide to extract gold at the project, as well as plans to process the ore on site.  The metallic sulfide project also carries a likely risk of polluting the adjacent Menominee River (the ore body runs under the river) and groundwater with heavy metals and acid mine drainage.  The Menominee River is prized as a high quality sports-fishing river.

Widespread opposition in the area is evidenced by a plethora of “Stop the Mine” signs along roadsides, in yards, stuffed in haystacks at family farms, and even plastered on a tractor during Stephenson’s Fourth of July parade.  In response, Aquila investors have begun distributing signs in support of the Back Forty project that accuse mine opponents of “whining.”  This and other divisive tactics pursued by the mining interests have created heated debate at public meetings where nearly all residents who aren’t employed by the company or invested in the project speak in opposition to Aquila’s plans.

“I think Tom Quigley is dreaming if he thinks that Aquila is going to get a permit in 2010, begin construction in 2011 and open the mine in 2012 after a company of the stature of Kennecott has been approved for years without putting a shovel in the ground,” said Ron Henriksen, a resident of Lake Township who lives within a half mile of the proposed mine.

Ron Henriksen, Lake Township resident

Certainly the odds aren’t in Aquila’s favor.

Company stock is currently trading at less than 20 cents a share on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Aquila doesn’t own another mining project that can produce revenue to fund the Back Forty project.  It is widely expected that Aquila will have to sell the project to a larger firm if the company fails to raise enough outside capital.  Widespread opposition to the project could make many potential investors nervous.

Nonetheless, Aquila has certainly been more active in promoting its mining project to the local community.  Recently, the company offered two $1,000 scholarships to Stephenson and Carney-Nadeau high school students for producing essays highlighting the potential economic benefits of the mine.  According to one Aquila investor and mine supporter, Menominee Public Schools did not allow Aquila to offer a similar scholarship through that school system.

Although the Lake Township Board has remained very critical of the Back Forty Project, Aquila has managed to secure approval in the nearby town of Stephenson.  On July 11, the Stephenson City Council formerly offered their support for Aquila’s project.  In a statement posted on Aquila’s website, the council said:

“Mayor Getzen and the Stephenson City Council would like to extend a warm welcome to Aquila Resources U.S.A. to our community. much [sic] needed employment opportunities and economic growth in our area. We look forward to a cooperative working relationship toward that goal.”

Aquila recently hosted a field trip to the partially-reclaimed Flambeau Mine, in Rusk County, Wisconsin.  The company has consistently presented Flambeau as an environmental and economic success story in presentations throughout Menominee County.  A group of Wisconsin citizens plans to sue Kennecott Flambeau Mining Company and the Wisconsin DNR regarding levels of water pollution that exceed Wisconsin and federal laws.  The lawsuit would be based upon Kennecott’s own monitoring data.  The WDNR has yet to issue a citation to the company for violating Wisconsin law.

Aquila hosted “guest speaker” Al Trippel, an environmental consultant with Environmental Resources Management (ERM), based out of London, England. Trippel acted as the mining company’s representative throughout Michigan’s “Part 632″ statute and rules process that crafted legislation regulating the metallic sulfide mining industry. Trippel is currently on Aquila’s payroll, conducting baseline environmental studies necessary prior to submitting a mine application.

Aquila consultant, Al Trippel; Photo courtesy Teresa Bertossi

Aquila’s advertisement for the presentation, in the Menominee County Journal, noted that the meeting was being held “in response to public requests for unbiased, educational, fact-driven information from an expert.”

Teresa Bertossi, Marquette County resident, claimed that publicity surrounding the event showed a lack of “integrity” at Aquila. According to Bertossi, the advertisement did not disclose that Trippel works for the mining company and, in order to be truly unbiased, the company should “have brought in a university professor or a scientist that does not work for Aquila” to present information.

“I think all of us are biased”, responded Trippel. “I think all of us have a perspective and bias that may have to do with…who we work for.” Trippel insisted, “The work that I do is unbiased.”

According to Trippel, the presentation was intended to introduce local residents to the basics of acid rock drainage and how it can be prevented from occurring in a mining operation. Trippel listed both mining projects that have generated significant acid runoff as well as mines that he considers to have operated without significant acid drainage problems. “Mining’s legacy is both good and bad,” said Trippel. “There’s very definitely bad mining legacy from historic mining operations and, in some cases, from current ones.”

Trippel explained that acid drainage only occurs when three substances come into contact: sulfides, water and air. Removing one or more of these ingredients precludes the possibility for acid generation. According to Trippel, a mining operation can avoid acid mine drainage problems by preventing sulfide ore from contacting groundwater and surface water through the use of liner systems and water treatment facilities. If the problem cannot be contained, a company can “minimize the amount of acid rock drainage that would be created,” “minimize its potential to seep into the ground” or clean up the mess “if the designs intended to avoid and minimize the impact weren’t good.”

In response, one local resident commented that Trippel brought up “some pretty big ‘ifs’.”

Acid rock drainage commonly occurs at mining operations that encounter certain sulfide deposits, primarily those containing iron pyrite which, when it contacts air and water, forms sulfate. Recently, the government of Norway, one of mining giant Rio Tinto’s largest shareholders, divested its $890 million stake in the company, citing major concerns regarding extensive acid mine drainage at the company’s Grasberg Mine, in West Papua. In explaining its controversial move, Norway’s Council on Ethic’s referred to acid mine drainage as “one of the most serious mining-related environmental problems across the world.”

Trippel introduced Kennecott-Rio Tinto’s Flambeau Mine, in Rusk County Wisconsin, as an example of a successful metallic sulfide mine that has not created acid drainage. According to company documents, elevated levels of iron, manganese and copper in groundwater flowing into the Flambeau River are expected to occur, above baseline levels, for at least another 4,000 years. Levels of sulfates are expected to continue for over 3,000 years.

Bertossi took issue with hailing Flambeau as a successful operation. Kennecott-Rio Tinto and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources data “show that there is acid rock drainage as well as high copper levels and high manganese levels,” said Bertossi. “But it’s under the mine site and, based on the statute in Wisconsin, they can pollute groundwater beneath the mine to any limit.”

Lake Township supervisor, Bob Desjarlais, commented that the majority of Trippel’s list of “good” mines began operations in the 1800s when there was very little enforcement of mining operations. “These mines must have been rather low in sulfides that if you consider them to be fairly good mines that they could be open in the 1880s and 1927, I mean long before EPA regulations came out on acid rock drainage,” said Desjarlais. “So, how can we say these are significant mines without significant acid rock drainage when they probably didn’t have any to begin with.”

Trippel maintained that the intent of his presentation was not to compare his listed mines that he considered successful with either the Kennecott-Rio Tinto’s Eagle Project or the Back Forty project.

Road sign in Menominee County, near Aquila Resources' "Back Forty" project; Photo courtesy Teresa Bertossi

Trippel also introduced the White Pine Mine as an example of a deposit containing high sulfides that was mined without creating reported acid mine drainage. However, according to sources familiar with operations at White Pine, acid mine drainage was never expected to occur at the facility because the ore was located in a copper sulfide deposit and was surrounded by natural calcium-containing buffering agents. Orvana Minerals Vice President of Corporate Development, Bill Williams, recently told the Marquette Mining Journal that ore found within the White Pine deposit is classified, under Michigan law, as “nonreactive.” According to Williams, Orvana has found “no obvious indications” that the deposit contains iron pyrite, which could cause acid drainage.

Aquila’s Back Forty Project consists of a “massive sulfide” gold-zinc deposit near the Menominee River, outside of Stephenson, Michigan. The ore body extends under the river, which is shared with neighboring Wisconsin, possibly introducing purview under that state’s metallic mining requirements, which are more stringent than Michigan’s.

The company plans to use a cyanide leaching process to extract gold from the deposit.

Aquila’s stock is currently worth less than one US dime, per share [as of this writing], and the company is looking to form a joint-venture partnership with a larger mining firm in order to extract and process the ore. According to Aquila President, CEO and Director Tom Quigley, the company will be “looking at a variety of partnerships” if Aquila lacks access to sufficient capital. The company projects a total cost of between 120 and 140 million dollars needed to open the mine.

Quigley said that Aquila has solicited a resource assessment from Toronto-based SRK Consultants and will announce the results by early January. Aquila has been pursuing a preliminary economic assessment and expects Trippel’s baseline environmental studies to be finalized in time for the company to submit a mining application by late 2009. Aquila has also been relocating its drill cores from a field office, in Daggett, to a new building south of Carney.

Aquila Resources' new drill core storage building; Photo courtesy Teresa Bertossi

According to Quigley, the economic downturn is “something that could potentially impact our progress and development” and Aquila may have to layoff staff and postpone some “development activities.” According to some local citizens, the company has already layed-off its lead geologist.

Eagle Rock from the Yellow Dog River and held a rally and sacred eagle feather ceremony at the site of the proposed Kennecott Eagle Mine. The event was sponsored by Yellow Dog Summer, Keepers of the Water and Students Against Sulfide Mining.

Citizens from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan Walk to Eagle Rock, on the Yellow Dog Plains; Photo courtesy Teresa Bertossi

The event marked a turning point in the citizen movement to protect public land and valuable freshwater from metallic sulfide and uranium mining and was defined by its diversity of attendees and the unity and determination of those involved. Speakers affirmed that, by remaining active and asserting the power of community and sovereign rights, dangerous mining is not a done deal in the U.P and throughout the Great Lakes.

“A Permanent Victory” in Wisconsin

University of Wisconsin sociology professor, Al Gedicks, discussed the successful opposition to the proposed Crandon Mine, adjacent to the Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa’s reservation. A nearly 30-year battle pitting a coalition of five tribal groups, sports fishermen, farmers, union workers and students against mining giants Exxon, BHP-Billiton and Rio Algom effectively ended, in 2003. The committed opposition had made the project so unattractive to investors that the mining giants were encouraged to leave the area for good. According to Gedicks, this represented the “first time anywhere in the world where not only a large corporation [had] been defeated but defeated in such a way that it is a permanent victory.”

Gedicks emphasized that this victory was accomplished when tribal and grassroots groups rejected a compromise stance taken by mainstream environmental groups. Describing what is commonly called a “consensus process,” Gedicks explained “the entire process is dominated by the mining company lawyers. For example, the whole process of permitting the metallic mining regulations in the state of Michigan were premised on the fact that there would be no consideration of a mining moratorium law. People that were in favor of the mining moratorium were excluded from participation in that process.”

Retired iron worker and summit speaker, Bob Tammen, commented that “the consensus process compromises what we stand for.”

Another Way

Gedicks asserted that alternatives exist to mining metals, such as copper, nickel and zinc. He stressed the importance of accessing recycled metals found in landfills. Currently, in the US, the amount of metal thrown in landfills, each year, equals the amount found in roughly 35 Kennecott Eagle Projects. Recycling opportunities abound also in the reuse of metals from abandoned military equipment. According to Gedicks, “Nickel is a war metal. You cannot wage war without nickel….all the equipment that has ever been used in any wars, from prehistoric times to now, that metal is still available. That metal is not now being recycled because it is more profitable to go after virgin sources of metal than there is to go after recycled metal.”

Gedicks warned attendees that “Everywhere you go, mining companies tell communities we’re going to have a mining project here. The first thing they say is that my state [e.g. Michigan] has the most strict environmental legislation . . . none of the state’s have strict environmental legislation. The strictest environmental legislation is in Ecuador.”

“There Will Be No Mine, As Long As I’m Alive”

Traditional Anishinaabe Dancer, Megan Tucker, at Presque Isle; Photo courtesy Teresa Bertossi

The event culminated with a rally on the Yellow Dog Plains and took a focus on treaty rights and community rights. After a jubilant 2-mile walk from the Yellow Dog River, Mole Lake member, Jerry Burnett, performed a highly emotional eagle feather ceremony, prior to presenting the feather to members of U.P. opposition. The eagle feather was offered by Sandy Lyons, one of the founders, along with Walt Bresette and Jim Schlender, of the Protect the Earth Gatherings, in Wisconsin.

Burnett told attendees, “It’s an honor and it’s a privilege to be here with you people. That’s one of the biggest things I’ve said to Exxon, Rio Algom, BHP, including Kennecott. I told them there will be no mine as long as I’m alive. And you have to believe that in your heart. Keep coming back for this and keep doing it until they’re gone.”

Following the eagle feather ceremony KBIC member, Stan Spruce, raised the Mole Lake water staff and said, to applause, “Kennecott can only hope to have this much power.”

Recovering the Sacred

Susan LaFernier, vice-president of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community urged attendees to remember that “Water is a gift of life and is sacred. Sulfide mining is not a done deal… Remember that we do have the power to effectively stop developments of unpopular mining plans and we must do so…I pray that our ancestors vision and our determination will be honored and that we allow our water to continue to purify itself as it knows how to best, since Creation.”

Fred Ackley, Mole Lake tribal judge and instrumental figure in stopping the Crandon Mine project, spoke with a sacred pipe in hand, “The Creator has given us all these things you see here…We have all these things he gave us. He also gave us a way how to live. So I pray for the nibi , the water; I pray for the fish in the water; I pray for all the human beings who drink water.”

Encapsulating the Summit’s theme, Al Hunter, poet and author from the Rainy River First Nation, in Ontario, told attendees that the mining companies “might have economic power, they might have political power, but they don’t have the spiritual power and that will trump everything, every single time. I want you to remember that.”

Organizers intend to hold a similar rally, next year, to address themes of treaty rights and the role citizens can play in actively stopping unpopular and dangerous metallic and uranium mining in the Great Lakes region.