Rio Tinto distributed a “fact” sheet about metallic sulfide mining (also called by the less-descriptive term “hardrock mining”) last year.  According to Rio Tinto’s fact sheet [available by clicking HERE]:

“The term “sulfide mining” is slang, not a scientific or industry term.  It is a term used by mining opponents to elicit concern and to confuse people … there is no basis for describing a copper, nickel or any other mineral mine as a “sulfide mine.”

We at LSMN decided to offer readers a short, interactive quiz, to test your knowledge of this issue.  Guess who said the following by matching the numbered quotes with the corresponding letters.  Letters can be used more than once.  Scroll all the way down for correct answers at the bottom (no cheating!).

The Quotes:

1.  ”A sulfide mine is a mine where the orebody and metals of interest were formed in the presence of sulfur creating sulfide type minerals … sulfide mines are important.”

2.  ”We participated in a Mine Work Group that was successful in developing rules for metallic sulfide mining in Michigan.”

3.  [Blank] announced today a proposed decision to approve a series of permits to the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company to conduct sulfide mining operations at the proposed Eagle Project Mine.”

4.  ”The Flambeau Mine was a Kennecott sulfide mining operation that ran for about 4 years in the 1990s.”

5.  ”If the mineral products and waste materials associated with nonferrous metallic sulfide mining operations are not properly managed and controlled, they can cause significant damage to the environment, impact human health, and degrade the quality of life of the impacted community.”

6.  ”Sulfide mining is prone to pollution and very difficult to clean … the [EPA] estimates that at least 40 percent of the headwater streams in western watersheds are contaminated where similar mining is occurring.”

Who Said It?

A.  Rio Tinto/Kennecott

B.  Your uncle

C.  Keweenaw Bay Indian Community

D.  Citizens for Responsible Mining (a Rio Tinto support group)

E.  Save the Wild UP

F.  Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)

G.  National Wildlife Federation

H.  Huron Mountain Club

I.   U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak

J.  Michigan Legislature

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Answer Key:

1.  A  (Rio Tinto conflicts its own statement (top of this posting) in another one of its fact sheets on the Michigan Eagle Mine – click here)

2.  A  (Kennecott’s 2005 “sustainable development” report – click here)

3.  F  (a Michigan DEQ news release – click here)

4.  D  (Citizens’ for Responsible Mining’s website – click here)

5.  J  (near the beginning of Michigan’s much-touted law regulating metallic sulfide mining – click here; for the full law click here)

6.  I  (an opinion article Stupak wrote last year – click here)

Note:  Although Rio Tinto and some of their supporters have made a big fuss that the term “metallic sulfide mining” (or the shortened version used by the company, “sulfide mining”) is only used by their opponents to “elicit concern” and “confuse” people, it is a common, and descriptive, industry term used to describe a type of mining that commonly creates a unique type of environmental devastation Norway calls “one of the most serious mining-related environmental problems across the world.”

The above examples where industry, its supporters, politicians, regulators, and lawmakers have used this term is not meant to be a comprehensive list, as the terms are widely used.

It seems that, in their haste to push the permits through in the absence of a director for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Kennecott conveniently forgot several factors which will eventually render the permits void.

1. Mining experts for the NWF and for the DEQ agreed that the February 2006 application was not acceptable.

If you have trouble believing that just read the one-page Executive Summary of Sainsbury’s report, which was suppressed by the DEQ, and has now been restored to their site, but has subsequently been ignored.

The application should have been rejected almost four years ago.

2. The “Mining Team” at the DEQ is not qualified to evaluate a technical mining application, having no applicable expertise or experience. They admitted as much in court. All permits granted should therefore be revoked. We could test their level of expertise in public if that would please them. A full hour on TV?

3. The Team admitted no familiarity with the law as it pertains to applications for a permit to mine, and illustrated that point by not requiring the applicant to actually demonstrate that their planned activities would perform as claimed. The pertinent Part 632 is available on the DEQ site and it is not very difficult to read and understand. They should have done that.

So don’t get excited yet. Don’t start your engines. And don’t harm a single tree in sight of Eagle Rock, the place of worship – which is protected by the law.

Thank you for your attention.

This letter was originally posted by the Houghton Mining Gazette on January 22, 2010.

Addendum: Confession to the Houghton Mining Gazette’s Managing Editor (following day)

Good morning Larry [Holcombe]:

This is not a normal Letter to the Editor, but a correction, an apology to you and your readers.

My letter, which you entitled “Kennecott mine not done deal” was written in haste and so was misleading.  You were considerate enough to call me and point that out, but I didn’t listen.  You even gave the piece a title more accurate and descriptive than mine.  I appreciate that.

I will try not to use this as an opportunity to preach my usual messages.

On Thursday  Jan 14th the DEQ announced that they were issuing the permits required by Kennecott.  Most of the press accepted that news as a signal to get started.  So I fired off the letter to the Gazette, intending to point out that the permits were not legal and to head off any preemptive action by Kennecott.  That was my intent, but …

In particular I wanted to ensure that nothing would be done to desecrate the “place of worship” – Eagle Rock.  I am not speaking for KBIC but assume that the top of the bluff, facing west, would be the seat of worship, and that any cutting and bulldozing in front of that place would do irreparable damage to the place of worship.

I could tell that I was in trouble when I came home yesterday and was attacked by my wife, who figured that I had gone over to the fanatic treehugger side.  My last paragraph sounds a lot like it:  ”And don’t harm a single tree in sight of Eagle Rock.”

Phew!  That statement was a bit strong.

I am sorry, and wish to reaffirm that I am “for” mining the Eagle orebody provided that it is done legally and responsibly.

Thank you for the guidance,

Jack

To read Jack Parker’s report on some of the problems with Kennecott’s Eagle Mine application, click HERE.

by Eartha Melzer, Michigan Messenger 

A member of the Summer Cloud drumming group performs during a 2008 ceremony at Eagle Rock

Two days before the DEQ ceases to exist and a week after its director stepped down, DEQ moved to wrap up a long standing fight over permits for a planned nickel sulfide mine by concluding that only buildings may be considered “places of worship.”  

A rock that is sacred to Anishnabe people need not be considered when issuing a mining permit because state law only recognizes buildings as places of worship, the Department of Environmental Quality announced Thursday.   

This decision cleared the way for DEQ to finalize permits for a mine planned for public land on the Yellow Dog Plain northwest of Marquette. 

The resolution comes at a time of great tumult for the department. Director Steven Chester resigned last week, and the department is slated to come under the leadership of DNR director Rebecca Humphries when it is rolled into the new Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment on Jan. 17.   

For seven years the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company, a subsidiary of London-based Rio Tinto, has been trying to develop the mine project. The company promised hundreds of construction and mining jobs but has faced opposition from groups that are concerned that acid drainage from the mine will damage the nearby Salmon Trout River and Lake Superior.  

The National Wildlife Federation, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, and the Huron Mountain Club together filed an administrative appeal of DEQ’s 2007 approval of mining and groundwater discharge permits for the mine.  

Eagle Rock, photo courtesy Yellow Dog Summer

 Over the course of more than a year the groups described numerous mine safety and environmental concerns. They also argued that the DEQ had failed to properly consider the impact of the mining on traditional Native American uses of the area, including the collection of medicinal plants and the use of Eagle Rock in religious ceremony.  

On Aug.18 2009 DEQ Administrative Law Judge Richard A. Patterson recommended that the Kennecott permits “be allowed with the exception that provision be made to avoid direct impacts to Eagle Rock that may interfere with the religious practices there on.”  

State mining law requires that “Residential dwellings, places of business, places of worship, schools, hospitals, government buildings, or other buildings used for human occupancy all or part of the year” be taken into account when permitting a mine. 

“Kennecott and, as a consequence, DEQ, did not properly address that impact on the sacred rock outcrop known as Eagle Rock as a place covered by Part 632 Rules,“ Patterson wrote in his review of the case.   

“…[T]he excavation and drilling in the immediate area of Eagle Rock and fencing it off will materially affect its use as a place of worship,“ he wrote. “This should in some manner be accommodated , and would best be done so by relocating the adit and access to the mine to a location that would not interfere with that function.” 

On Nov. 6 2009 DEQ Director Chester remanded the case back to Patterson and asked that he expand on his discussion of the religious significance of Eagle Rock and DEQ’s responsibility for places of worship under state law.  

 Chester promised to issue a final decision on the permits after receiving the supplemental analysis from Judge Patterson.   

Just two weeks ago the DEQ still expected to wait to decide on the permits until hearing from Patterson.  

A Dec. 29 Marquette Mining Journal article on the potential effect of DEQ restructuring on permits for the Kennecott mine reported:   

“[DEQ spokesman Bob McCann] said he had no indication when Patterson might provide the additional information so a final decision can be made on the contested case.” 

In an interview Thursday afternoon McCann denied that the timing of the decision had anything to do with the impending restructuring of the department.   

“We were hoping to have this done in December,” he said. 

McCann said that DEQ senior policy advisor Frank Ruswick reviewed the documents filed and decided DEQ could issue a final order without a modified proposal from Judge Patterson.   

“Michigan mining law references buildings that are places of worship,“ McCann said. “Eagle Rock doesn’t fit into that under Michigan mining law, therefore it doesn’t apply in this case.”  

National Wildlife Fund attorney Michelle Halley decried DEQ’s move as “an effort to push this through before [Rebecca Humphries] becomes the director of the decision making body.” 

Halley said that she finds it “totally illogical” that DEQ would request an opinion from an administrative law judge and then make a decision on the permits before receiving it, adding that her clients intend to appeal DEQ’s decision in circuit court.  

Kennecott responded to DEQ’s final approval in statement saying that it plans to begin clearing the mine site and constructing a water treatment facility this year.  

“Today’s decision by the State is great news for our project and a community and region that has been anticipating the job opportunities and economic contribution our project will trigger,” Rio Tinto / Kennecott Eagle Minerals General Manager Jon Cherry, said in the statement. “Permitting this project has been a very rigorous process that has enabled Kennecott to develop an exceptionally responsible design and approach to mining in the 21st Century in Michigan.” 

Kennecott said that it aims to begin production of nickel and copper from the mine in 2013.   

The Michigan Environmental Council called DEQ’s final approval “disappointing and inappropriate.” 

“Strong Michigan laws were written specifically to protect Michigan’s waters, including the Great Lakes, from toxic byproducts this mining will create,” MEC Spokesman Hugh McDiarmid Jr. said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that the state has chosen not to fully enforce these laws in the permitting process.” 

To read more from Eartha Melzer, please visit Michigan Messenger.

Here are some comments on the Humboldt Mill permit.

First, we must thank Hal Fitch for his promise to respond to all written comments.  We appreciate the gesture.

I read the newspapers and watched WLUC-TV6 coverage of the event, but didn’t learn much.

I saw a lot of empty seats and heard that the majority of those present were in favor of the project. I have heard nothing more in the past week.  But two especially strong points were presented and not reported.

1. Speaker Teresa Bertossi, independent, quoted Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Steven Chester who has freely admitted that budget restraints and pressure to handle more projects have left the department underfunded and undermanned.  We can understand that, and we commiserate.

In the present context, with the Kennecott applications, Mining Team Leader Joe Maki did not have the help he needed.  His team did not have the expertise to evaluate legal and technical issues.  He said as much in court. We understand their predicament.

2. Speaker Cynthia Pryor, Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, forcefully read from a long and detailed list of items wherein Kennecott had not met the requirements of Part 632 of the Michigan Mining Law by failing, in each instance, to demonstrate that their plans could be carried out successfully, either by demonstration or with documented evidence that similar plans had been used successfully elsewhere, in similar circumstances. (The alternative would be – “Just trust me.”)

In the first instance the punchline would be:  Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding given that the evaluating agency was not qualified then no permits should have been issued, and all permits and agreements must be revoked.

In the second instance it was shown that Kennecott had not met the requirements of the law, so the application should have been turned down as administratively incomplete at a much earlier date, and it should be rejected forthwith.  MDEQ must uphold the law.

We ask, therefore, for those lapses to be corrected:  That the application be rejected and the permits and agreements revoked immediately.  Thank you.

I’m still pro-mining, but only if it’s done right.

Jack Parker is a respected rock mechanics expert with experience in hundreds of mines over his 60-year career.

Also posted in the Hougton Mining Gazette.

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.

Russ Harding,  first director of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality,  recently attacked a bill, introduced by Representative Dan Scripps, to protect our water resources and economy from irresponsible corporate exploitation.  Harding also wrote a letter to the Mining Journal, making the dishonest claim that a ballot proposal “effectively bans future mining in Michigan.” Harding’s background as a staunch defender of Dow Chemical has shown him to be an apologist for corporate interests , even when doing so threatens public health.

In 2000, high levels of dioxin, located in a field near Saginaw, prompted the DEQ to collect samples:  The vast majority showed concentrations violating Michigan law.   Dioxin, highly toxic in even minute doses, damages the nervous and reproductive systems, child and fetal development and causes cancer.

A 2001 FOIA request revealed that Harding suppressed information regarding the soil tests and refused to approve further testing. Harding also suppressed an internal state health assessment recommending immediate action, going so far as to blacken out sections and redacting certain public documents referring to Dow’s responsibility..

Harding tried to tamper with the law in order to increase the amount of allowable dioxin in residential and industrial areas, thereby allowing dioxin levels more than ten times above public health standards.

In October 2004, Harding, who now works for the Dow-funded Mackinaw Center for Public Policy, wrote that the cost of cleanup for Dow “would be a huge expense for them for what they think is not money well-spent.”

In 2007, the highest level of dioxin ever reported to the Environmental Protection Agency was found in the river adjacent to Saginaw’s Wickes Park, where children play.

Harding is not alone in his disregard for public health.  Steven Chester, before becoming the current DEQ head, worked for a law firm representing Dow Chemical.  A 2007 confidential memo obtained from the EPA contains a scathing criticism of both Governor Granholm and Steven Chester, expressing concern that the DEQ and Michigan politicians made attempts to weaken Michigan law and delay clean-up in an effort to reduce potential future liability for Dow.

At the DEQ, it seems profits for companies like Dow Chemical and Rio Tinto will always take a front seat to human health.

A Mining Journal editorial on an environmental ballot proposal (Oct. 21) claimed that Michigan has “significant regulations in place to insure that mining does not damage our environment.”

While I am not involved in the ballot campaign, I have to ask if those “significant” regulations are being followed.

Last September, DEQ Director Steven Chester said, “We simply don’t have the kind of funding we need to adequately implement the laws we’re required to implement.”

In court, Joe Maki, the DEQ’s application review coordinator for Kennecott’s Eagle Project, said his agency did not consider a central tenet of Michigan’s current sulfide mining law requiring that a mine application has to establish that the proposed mining operation “reasonably minimize[s] actual or potential adverse impacts on air, water and other natural resources.”

On June 19, 2008, shortly before 6 p.m., when asked if either he or his mine team followed that law in recommending approval of the project, Maki said, “I did not, no,” and “I don’t believe so, no.”

Charges have been made by well-respected mining expert Jack Parker that the Eagle Mine is not safe and could collapse.  The state’s own expert, Dr. David Sainsbury, said that Kennecott’s mine plan is “technically antiquated, sloppy and equivalent to high school level work,” that Kennecott’s methodology does “not reflect industry best practice” and Kennecott’s conclusions regarding the mine’s stability “are not considered to be defensible.”

In a July 2008 letter, the DEQ’s deputy director, Jim Sygo, said that Kennecott “would have to apply for an amendment of the mining permit for construction of a new haul road and … before beginning activities to extend electrical service from County Road 550 to the Eagle Project mine site.”

So where’s the application for mining permit amendments for the current work on the powerline going to the mine and the road going from the proposed mine, on the Yellow Dog Plains, to the proposed processing facility, in Humboldt?  Both plans are clearly for the Eagle Mine and are paid for by Kennecott. Legally, Kennecott has to reapply to add these plans to their mine plan. Why aren’t they?  Why isn’t anyone requiring them to follow the law?

If the state won’t even require Kennecott to follow the current law, is it really unexpected that a group would be working to try to strengthen that law and do the job for them?

Also posted at the Marquette Mining Journal.

Steven Chester, Michigan DEQ Director; Photo courtesy State of Michigan; Oddly enough, Chester makes the final decision on whether or not his own agency followed the law in approving Kennecott-Rio Tinto's Eagle Mine application

According to the Associated Press, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director, Steven Chester, wants further information from Judge Patterson on whether or not Eagle Rock is legally a place of worship and is asking Patterson to reverse legal advice that would somewhat protect the religious rights of Native Americans in Michigan.

In August,  Patterson recommended nearly unconditional support of Kennecott-Rio Tinto’s proposed Eagle Mine, in the Huron Mountains of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  The judge’s one stipulation was that Eagle Rock, a place of worship for indigenous peoples, be protected.  During the contested case on the mine proposal, DEQ lawyers argued that Eagle Rock is not a place of worship because it is not a constructed building, such as a Christian church or a mosque.

Patterson’s recommendation mirrored, nearly identically, Kennecott’s view of its own application and took the company’s court testimony as solid fact.  Immediately prior to the judge’s ruling, Kennecott acknowledged, to the Environmental Protection Agency, that indigenous access to Eagle Rock was a significant issue, perhaps reflecting the motive behind the judge’s opinion on the sacred site.

Apparently not under consideration is that the DEQ’s coordinator for review of the Eagle Mine application, Joe Maki, said, under oath, that neither he or his team followed a central tenet of Michigan’s “Part 632″ mining law.

Also swept under the rug are comments made by the State’s commissioned rock mechanics expert, Dr. David Sainsbury,  that the company’s mine plan was “technically antiquated, sloppy and equivalent to high school level work.” Sainsbury also insisted that the DEQ kept relevant local geological information out of his reports and repeatedly said that Kennecott’s conclusions regarding the ability of the mine to not collapse “are not considered to be defensible” and does “not reflect industry best practice.”

Judge Patterson’s ruling is simply a recommendation to Chester.  In a bizarre sort of justice, Chester will soon issue a final decision on whether he and his agency followed the law in approving Kennecott’s application.

The meeting contrasted sharply with hearings held on Rio Tinto’s proposed Eagle Project mine from 2006 to 2007. More than 400 attended one Eagle hearing, with over ninety-percent speaking in opposition to the project.

While not quite the inverse of the Eagle hearings—roughly sixty-percent of public comments were offered in support of the milling project and only about forty public comments were taken—the number in support greatly outnumbered detractors, partly due to the presence of mine company staff and generous amounts of heckling from much of the crowd.

To thunderous applause, one audience member disrupted Big Bay resident and Save the Wild UP (SWUP) director, Kristi Mill’s public comment. The man shouted that discussion of Rio Tinto’s Eagle Mine was “not relevant” to the Humboldt hearing. Moderator, James Collins, replied that Mills had time remaining for her comment and that discussion of Eagle was allowed because the two projects “are related”.

Mills had been questioning why the DEQ was using tax payer dollars to consider Rio Tinto’s Humboldt Mill application while the Eagle Project has been “deferred” indefinitely.

Rio Tinto has had a rough few months.

The company has seen a dramatic reduction in its share value as metal prices have plummeted. Nickel, alone, has fallen from over $25 per pound roughly a year ago to less than $5 per pound today. Burdened with roughly $40 billion in debt, the company announced plans last week, to sell nearly one-fifth of the company to the Chinese government-run aluminum company, Chinalco, currently Rio Tinto’s largest shareholder. Kennecott is, currently, a wholly-owned subsidiary of London-based Rio Tinto.

Economy Main Issue at Hearing

A need for additional area employment and economic growth was, by far, the strongest theme during the hearing. Every comment in support of the project cited the need for more jobs without addressing the Humboldt application specifically. Although not a job creation agency, the DEQ was repeatedly urged to approve the project based on the potential for job creation and economic growth.

County commissioner Deb Pellow said that Rio Tinto’s project is “very important to the county’s overall economic diversification and well being.”

“DEQ: do your job and bring us these jobs,” urged Pellow.

Gerald Corkin, chairman of the Marquette County Board of Commissioners, said the mill project would “provide up to fifty to seventy full-time jobs [and] one-hundred to two-hundred construction jobs.”

“There’s the potential to have mining for another hundred years in the UP,” Corkin speculated.

Joe Derocha, Humboldt Township supervisor, said, “Mining was what raised us, brought us here today.”

“More businesses, more jobs, more people create more economic development,” said Derocha.

Tom Peterson, former Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company general manager and current president of Citizens for Responsible Mining offered his support for the project and represented the hearing’s only complaint coming from a Rio Tinto supporter.

“I did not want to see Kennecott do what they did down in Ladysmith at the Flambeau Mine and that is to high-grade a deposit and leave a lot of ore that could be mined,” said Peterson.

According to Jack Parker, former Rock Mechanics Director at the White Pine Mine, Rio Tinto has similar plans for the Eagle ore deposit. According to Parker, the company plans to leave much of the ore behind, taking only the richest available. Parker maintains that, since much of the ore is owned by the people of Michigan, mining only the high and mid-grades and leaving the rest is “not responsible mining”.

DEQ: “Mercury would likely be a major concern to the public” at Humboldt Mill

According to documents obtained through an open records request, the DEQ believes mercury discharges may be a serious issue at the mill site. Mercury is known to bioaccumulate in fish tissue and is considered a serious danger to public health. According to the DEQ, “There are no proven technologies to consistently achieve [a] low level…Mercury would likely be a major concern to the public and environmental groups.”

At the hearing, some local citizens expressed concerns regarding potential water contamination and fugitive dust control problems at the Humboldt Mill.

Robert Rivera, from Iron River, told the DEQ that he is opposed to Rio Tinto’s milling plans that could process ore currently being explored by Prime Meridian Resources, in Iron County, where he has lived most of his life.

“I grew up in a mining family, in a mining town a quarter of a mile from an abandoned and toxic mine site on the Iron River. It has been remediated and remediated again and it still leaches yellow boy,” said Rivera.

Ely Township resident and miner, Stephen Johnson, said that he lives along the Escanaba River. “Since the thirty years I’ve lived here I’ve seen the Middle Branch of the Escanaba deteriorate as a quality watershed,” Johnson said. “We used to have brook trout galore in it some thirty years ago and I’m not aware of anybody catching a brook trout down by my residency in the last fifteen years.”

Johnson commented on Callahan Mining’s Humboldt Mill application in the 1980s and said that he was “not really happy with the way, at that time, the DNR handled the situation. There were a lot of questions we asked that were never answered.”

“My major concern is here what is the DEQ going to do to ensure that the quality no longer deteriorates anymore and what are we doing to bring it back to the level that it was thirty years ago,” said Johnson.

Incomplete Application?

Only a handful of comments in opposition to Rio Tinto’s milling project highlighted concerns directly related to aspects of the company’s milling application.

Chuck Brumleve spoke on behalf of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and raised concerns regarding water inflow through bedrock surrounding the tailings pit. According to Brumleve, “the applicant seems to treat the pit as if it’s a sealed pool or container for sulfide tailings.”

“There is a whole body of current information by the Canadians and the [Environmental Protection Agency] that indicates surrounding rock considerations are the primary consideration in safe tailings disposal, which is not addressed by the applicant in this mining permit application,” said Brumleve.

Brumleve also addressed the need to clean-up existing mining contamination at White Pine, the Keweenaw Copper district and the Empire and Tilden mines before new mining projects are permitted.

Brumleve urged Rio Tinto supporters to “think of the next seven generations and not of your level of affluence here in today.”

Big Bay resident, Cynthia Pryor, raised concerns that construction plans for a protective berm were not included in the Humboldt application and that the plan lacks adequate contingency plans for such events as an “absolute berm failure”.

“It’s very difficult to give public comment on something that’s not included in the application,” said Pryor.

Defending the DEQ

Even the DEQ’s Office of Geological Survey Director, Hal Fitch, took his turn at the microphone to respond to this writer’s public comment on DEQ malfeasance regarding the handling of Rio Tinto’s Eagle Project application. Fitch also defended his role in forming a non-profit corporation with Kennecott and Bitterroot Resources while the Eagle Project application was under agency consideration.

The Northern Michigan Geologic Repository Association (NMGRA) was formed by the DEQ in 2007, with Fitch as president. Meetings were held in the DEQ’s Lansing office building and were attended by paid DEQ and DNR staff. Company representatives expressed an interest in utilizing federal and state grants to fund NMGRA projects.

In an October 2007 e-mail, Fitch acknowledged “that there would be a problem with a state agency forming a corporation” but “came up with an innovative way to address the problem: formation of a non-profit corporation that is not a part of any state agency, but in which OGS is a participating member.”

Hal Fitch resigned from the NMGRA’s board in Fall 2008.

At the Humboldt hearing, Fitch defended his actions: “To suggest that somehow I’m corrupt because I tried to organize a system where we could get the users to pay for something we’re mandated to do, I don’t think that’s very responsible.”

Fitch also defended the actions of DEQ employee Joe Maki, who testified under oath during a recent contested case hearing, that the DEQ did not follow a key provision in Michigan’s new metallic mining law:

“The applicant has the burden of establishing that the terms and conditions set forth in the permit application, mining, reclamation and environmental protection plan and environmental assessment will result in a mining operation that reasonably minimizes actual or potential adverse impacts on air, water and other natural resources and meets the requirements of this act.”

When questioned by a National Wildlife Federation attorney if either he or “the mining team” applied this key section of the new law to their analysis of the Eagle Project application, Maki responded, “I did not, no.”

At the Humboldt hearing, Fitch disagreed, saying, “Joe Maki did not say that we did not, that we disobeyed the law in processing the permit,” said Fitch.

Fitch was presented with a copy of Maki’s court transcript.

Rio Tinto is proposing to produce both nickel and copper concentrates at the Humboldt Mill that would “most likely” be shipped via rail to smelters in Canada. The waste material, containing heavy metals and acid-generating material, would be deposited underwater at the mill site, on top of Callahan’s tailings. The company plans to discharge treated wastewater into wetlands that feed into the middle branch of the Escanaba River.

According to the DEQ, the company must still apply for Air Use, Surface Water Discharge and Inland Lakes and Streams permits before the Humboldt Mill can be used again for mine processing. The DEQ expects to issue a proposed decision in “mid-April.” A new public hearing, addressing all of the required permits would follow.

Citizens are encouraged to send in written comments on the Humboldt Mill mining application. Comments are due to the DEQ by 5:00 pm on Wednesday, March 18.

Letters should be sent to:

Kennecott/Humboldt Mill Comments

DEQ Office of Geological Survey

PO Box 30256

Lansing, MI 48909

Or, by e-mail:

Deq-kennecott-humboldt-mill-comments@michigan.gov