It’s getting easier all the time for a mining company to say it can follow the law, especially when the law is constantly tailored to suit their direct interests. Taconite mining operations in Minnesota have been violating water protection laws for decades, including a standard regulating sulfates, which kill wild rice stands. State Representative Tom Rukavina says “we don’t have any idea” what a safe level is but if the law is finally enforced, it will harm taconite mining corporations and new Canadian corporations trying to mine in Minnesota. Rukavina said the new sulfate standard should be 25 times what it is now. Read the rest of this entry »
Minnesota Further Weakens Laws Regulating Mining Industry
March 6, 2011
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More Coverage: Controversial Kennecott mine permits OK’d at 11th hour
January 15, 2010Dept. rules that sacred rock is ‘not a place of worship’
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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Rio Tinto Set to Make Off With $140 Billion in Public Mineral Wealth; Company and Plan Criticized
December 17, 2009
Resolution Explores for Copper Outside Superior, Arizona; Photo courtesy Flickr
Rio Tinto, a company that has made its name exploiting public and indigenous mineral wealth for decades, is set to make off with an astounding $140 billion in publicly-held mineral rights, in Arizona, for what is expected to be North America’s largest copper mine.
On Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved a land swap allowing Resolution Copper Mining (a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton) access to 2,400 acres of the Tonto National Forest. The area contains sites sacred to local Native American tribes and was previously protected from mining activities by the Eisenhower administration.
According to the Arizona Republic, in a deal reached between the Obama administration, Senate Democrats and Arizona Senator John McCain, the only thing standing in Resolution’s way is a federal environmental review that must be completed prior to the land deal.
An opponent of the deal, US Representative Raúl Grijalva has concerns with Rio Tinto’s human rights record and urges a full investigation before a land swap is considered. Read the rest of this entry »
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Economy, Water and Government Corruption Main Themes at Rio Tinto Humboldt Mill Hearing; Two Federal Agencies Opposed to Michigan’s Approval
December 3, 2009Westwood High School, Ishpeming, Michigan – Perhaps reflective of a general lack of responsiveness at the state level on the metallic sulfide mining controversy in Michigan, few attended a hearing on Rio Tinto’s proposed Humboldt Township milling facility, located in western Marquette County. As with a previous hearing, in February, employment, water quality, worker safety and incompetence at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Rio Tinto were primary themes.
Baraga County Mine Inspector, Don Carlson, expressed concern that fugitive dust leaving the proposed mill site could affect worker’s health and the health of their families since he has not seen an adequate plan to both capture and dispose of the fine material. Carlson also highlighted Michigan’s poor economy – Baraga County has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates - and said that any mining jobs need to be performed by union workers, citing the closed White Pine Mine as a good example of how workers could be treated.
“When this company comes to the area are the area people going to be hired or are the companies going to bring the people from other areas,” questioned Carlson. “We have an influx in Michigan of no jobs, people being laid off every day, all these types of things and these workers aren’t being able to go and get a job, a union job, with these companies.”
Rio Tinto, a notorious anti-worker company has drawn the ire of union workers around the world and is currently attempting to bust Local 30 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, AFL-CIO, at the company’s large open pit Borax Mine, in California.
Chris Mofatt, a Marquette County prison worker and lifelong Upper Peninsula resident said, “I don’t oppose mining, I don’t oppose jobs, but I do oppose liars and I think that Rio Tinto and the DEQ are not credible.”
“Rio Tinto’s track record is poor,” said Mofatt. “They want to come in here and do the same thing in the UP they’ve done in other countries. I oppose that. Michigan deserves better than that and we’re not getting it right now. Our corporate government wants to run an eighteenth century industry down the throat of twenty-first century enfranchised Americans. . . we deserve better and so does everybody in the world because we have twenty percent of the fresh water.”
According to Keweenaw Bay Indian Community geologist, Chuck Brumleve, the DEQ’s approval of the Humboldt Project is currently opposed by both the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Yet, in an interview with WLUC-TV6, the DEQ’s director of the Office of Geological Survey, Hal Fitch, claimed that approval of the Humboldt Mill project “hasn’t been a controversial issue.” Read the rest of this entry »
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Michigan DEQ Wants Judge to Reconsider Recommendation Protecting Native American Sacred Site
November 7, 2009
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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Protect the Earth 2009: Part 2, Walk to Eagle Rock
August 8, 2009by Michelle Bourdieu
Marquette County, Michigan - The Walk to Eagle Rock, a sacred Native American site on the Yellow Dog Plains, on Sunday, Aug.2, 2009, was a
Over 175 people walk to Eagle Rock, on the Yellow Dog Plains; Photo courtesy Michele Bourdieu
community event, bringing together people of at least three, if not more, generations — Native and non-Native — from Michigan, neighboring Great Lakes states and even from the far West.
To read the rest of this article, by Michele Bourdieu, please visit Keweenaw Now.
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KBIC’s Proposed Law Would Ensure Protection
February 25, 2009by Gabriel Caplett
In crafting its Part 632 regulations for nonferrous metallic sulfide mining, the State of Michigan may have stopped short of passing a law fully protective of public health, the environment and indigenous cultural resources on reservation lands. Now KBIC Proposed Mining Ordinance December 2008 that would create one of the most stringent mining laws in the world. Read the rest of this entry »
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Sulfide Mining Conference Pulls Midwest Together
December 31, 2008At a recent Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) mining conference at the Fond du Lac Reservation, in northeastern Minnesota, participants from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario met to discuss strategies for protecting native american cultural and treaty rights from sulfide and uranium mining operations.
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Community Unifies to Defend Their Rights: The Success of the KI6
December 31, 2008By Gabriel Caplett
In February 2006, a small crowd of mostly children and elderly members from the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, (KI) or Big Trout Lake, First Nation peacefully blockaded a winter access road used by the Platinex mining company and decommissioned the company’s exploration camp, dismantling buildings and packing their drilling equipment. In response to the blockade the drilling crew fled the area by plane. Despite offers to return the equipment to the company, Platinex did not contact KI for its equipment. Following this action, the KI chief sat at the site and protected the territory for about a month until it became apparent that Platinex wasn’t returning anytime soon. Read the rest of this entry »
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Healthy Economies: White Earth Sets Example
December 31, 2008By Gabriel Caplett
The White Earth Reservation, in northern Minnesota, has been focusing on bolstering its local economy by promoting sustainable industry that works with and protects the land. According to the White Earth Land Recovery Project’s (WELRP) Founding Director, Winona LaDuke, investing in sustainable and local energy and food production will help her community develop sustainable alternatives to boom and bust industries. WELRP’s Sustainable Communities Initiative synthesizes contemporary and traditional ideas in order to restore the White Earth community to its roots in self-sufficiency and sustainability. According to LaDuke, building a sustainable local economy helps prevent the White Earth Reservation from being “bent over a barrel” when a large mining or timber company attempts projects that would act against the long-term best interest of the community. Read the rest of this entry »
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