Rio Tinto, Kennecott’s parent company, has the attention of the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council.)  The NRDC is protesting the Pebble mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay.

The NRDC describes Rio Tinto as a London-based mining conglomerate that has left a trail of toxic contamination from Indonesia to Utah.  In 1996, a dam failed at the Porco mine in Bolivia where Rio Tinto had a significant interest.  A Belgian scientist working in the region reports the rivers are totally dead.

The Grasberg Mine in Indonesia is a Rio Tinto joint venture reported by the New York Times in 2005, to have buried nearly 90 squared miles of wetlands with mine waste.  Almost all fish have disappeared.

Rio Tinto is facing a class-action lawsuit in which locals citizens in Papua New Guinea charge the company with “knowingly emitting and depositing volatile and highly toxic mine waste onto the land and into the water.”

The Bingham Canyon mine near Salt Lake City operated by Rio Tinto’s wholly owned subsidiary, Kennecott Utah Copper has created a 72-square-mile plume of contamination that has rendered a large area of local groundwater too polluted for human consumption.  The EPA recommended listing the mine as a federal Superfund Site in 1994.

Write Rio Tinto in London as soon as possible to protest the Pebble mine and to protest the Eagle mine here in Marquette County.  When a county commissioner makes reference to the Kennecott Woodland road issue as getting excited about a few frogs and mosquitoes, the writing is on the wall, Marquette County citizens need to take matters in their own hands.

According to Kennecott, there are only two routes for the ‘haul road’, the one they want or the one that everyone does not want.  They are creating a false choice in order to get approval of the road they want.  When Kennecott has completed the mining of Eagle Rock how will the ‘haul road’ continue to be utilized?  Why not build a road that will add to the infrastructure of the county.

If the mine is to be completed it must be safe for the people who will work there; it must have minimal negative impact on our environment and any changes to our infrastructure must be an asset to the County.  Based on Rio Tinto (Kennecott’s) track record, I don’t believe they are willing or capable of the task.  I, personally, don’t give a “bleep” about the bottom line for the shareholders in London, England.

Yesterday, some local elected officials met with the Marquette County Road Commission to discuss whether or not to move forward on Rio Tinto’s County Road 595/Woodland Road ore hauling project.  The meeting was closed to the public.

“We met with elected officials from townships, the county board, and the cities and we discussed what information that we each had about what was going on and there was some discussion on what direction we should take,” said county road engineer Jim Iwanicki.  “I was asked to try to prepare a letter to send to Kennecott [wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto] and I am working on that letter as we speak.”

“The general consensus of the group was that the existing road system was not in the best public safety interest of the community as a whole and they wanted to continue to look at what options there were to continue on the 595 project.”

Read the rest at Headwaters by clicking here.

Following reporting by Headwaters that Rio Tinto’s original ore hauling transportation route for its Eagle Mine called for the company to access existing rail networks and avoiding trucking transportation through city streets, the company now has a response.

The original plan [accessed by clicking here] called for the company to truck ore down county roads AAA, 510, and roughly 20 miles down 550, taking them to the LS&I railroad, north of Marquette.  This original route would have allowed the company to avoid trucking through the Upper Peninsula’s busiest and most populated travel corridor:  through city streets in Marquette, Negaunee, and Ishpeming, and a number of townships.

Read the rest at Headwaters by clicking here.

Marquette County road commissioners were told tonight that Rio Tinto’s currently-approved and original ore hauling plan does not involve heavy truck traffic through Marquette, but instead delivery to the LS&I rail line, northwest of Marquette, that avoids heavy truck traffic through the streets of Marquette, Negaunee and Ishpeming.

“I don’t understand why the road and some of the transportation issues that are being raised now were not raised when Kennecott first put in their mine transportation application initially, and which was amproved,” said County Commissioner Mike Quayle, reading from a personal statement.

“If I understand the original application—the permit granted—the product is to be trucked to just north of Marquette utilizing county roads Triple A, 510 and 550.  It was then to be transferred to railcar and hauled to Sudbury, Canada, for processing.  If there has been an amendment to the permit to haul the ore through the city of Marquette, Marquette Township, onto US-41/M-28, west to the Humboldt plant I’m not aware of it.”

To read more go to Headwaters.

Last week Rio Tinto announced plans to drop its pursuit of the 22-mile 595/Woodland Road to haul ore from its Eagle Mine to the Humboldt Mill, in Marquette County.  The company’s project director, Andrew Ware, claimed Rio Tinto will now “move forward with the originally designated route” and drive through the city streets of Marquette.

Problem is, Rio Tinto doesn’t really have an approved route to do so.

The approved, and originally designated route, allows Rio Tinto to haul ore on public roads to a rail line just northwest of the city of Marquette.  From there the company can use an existing rail system to haul ore to Sudbury, Ontario, or amend its plan and build a short spur to transport it to the nearby Humboldt Mill.

Or it can access the existing Cliffs-owned LS&I rail line from points far west of Marquette, or extend the line—as it has been in the past to haul ore and timber—to the mine site on the Yellow Dog Plains.  A project like this would benefit both Rio Tinto and Cliffs’ logging plans and create a ton of jobs, reducing diesel emissions and construction material use far more than building and driving on a 22-mile road through rough country ever would.

The point is there are a number of options better than the two Rio Tinto is providing that create far less risk for the public and to our rich outdoors heritage.

Read the rest at Headwaters News by clicking here.

It’s likely Kennecott isn’t even fully considering the “new” haul route through Marquette. It’s more likely a red herring – a manipulation to try to force public sentiment back the other way – to get the original road–595–approved while skirting around the law and not sharing all of the alternatives with the public.

Why bluff? Well, for the same reasons you might in a game of poker, to provoke a fold by an opponent who holds a better hand. Kennecott is trying to use the “new” route to get locals to argue their case for them. Third party advocacy is preferable to direct corporate advocacy, especially when it has the potential to help eliminate federal involvement.

Why is it that Kennecott changed the road plan from a private road to a public road to begin with? Likely, it assumed the EPA wouldn’t meddle in local government county road affairs, and that the company could get its mine road without following the law or amending its original mine plan as it would have had to under the Clean Water Act, through the Army Corps of Engineers.

According to the corps, “If the road is required to connect the proposed nickel mine with the milling operation and tailings disposal facility these actions should be evaluated under one project… and the public and the process are best served by evaluating projects in their entirety.” So the company isn’t telling us the whole story or providing us with the information we need to make an informed decision. Instead, Kennecott has given us only two options: it’s either going to disregard public health and safety on the busy streets of Marquette or drive a road straight through moose country, the heart of some of our last wildlands east of the Mississippi. That’s not acceptable!

I most certainly support local government authority, as that is where citizens can have the greatest impact. However, if this haul road project is not considered as part of the mine project, then the financial burden for cleanup will likely fall upon the taxpayers of Michigan when environmental contamination problems develop along the route.

Kennecott’s poor transportation plans are only one example of the many deficiencies found within its mine application; the permit should be revoked and the company should be required to follow the law as every other property owner is made to do.

Teresa Bertossi

Marquette

[letter to the editor of the Marquette Mining Journal]

From an article by the AP‘s John Flesher:

A company preparing to build a nickel and copper mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wants to change its wastewater treatment system in a way that could negate the requirement for a federal permit, officials said Tuesday.

Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co. has asked the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment to modify a 2007 state permit authorizing underground discharge of treated wastewater from the mine planned for rural Marquette County.

Originally, the company proposed injecting the treated water back into the groundwater through a network of soil-covered infiltration pipes. The new plan calls for keeping the pipes on the surface and covering them with Styrofoam insulation and a liner. The treated water would still be pumped into the groundwater.

To read the rest of this article, click HERE.