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.

The opposition was quite diverse, coming from sportsmen, a former employee of Kennecott, a federal government bureaucrat, teachers, doctors, hippies, retirees, and more.

Here’s a story from TV6 on the meeting:

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.

Healthy religious communities, especially here in the Upper Peninsula, hold at the center of convictions a respect for individual conscience. That’s one of the reasons for the “quietism” of many faith leaders when taking public positions on ethics and public policy.

But when religion tilts too far in this “private” direction, churches and tabernacles become silent, irrelevant to important issues facing us as citizens. Dynamic symbols and spiritual teachings on justice and compassion are robbed of their power for change and reduced to sentimental musings.

At the annual meeting of Rio Tinto in London a few weeks ago, it was announced the blasting of Eagle Rock for Kennecott’s proposed sulfide mine in Marquette County is scheduled to begin in coming weeks. During days ahead, trucks full of explosives and dynamite will be traveling up County Road 550 to begin work.

For those identifying with Christian traditions, these are days of recalling a divine drama of crucifixion and resurrection. It’s also a time when we remember Judas betraying a carpenter and king, his teacher and Savior, with a kiss.

Matthew Fox, Christian theologian, reminds us of the new environmental consciousness transforming the way we all live. He suggests if Christians confess the mystery of the incarnation, they should entertain the explosive possibility that the earth is Christ’s body, that when we support environmental degradation we participate in Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion.

Those who have walked alongside leaders of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the National Wildlife Federation, Concerns Citizens of Big Bay, 200 medical professionals and 100 faith leaders will continue to protest this mine with its looming threat to the health of the people who live in the forests and fish the streams adjacent to the mine site. For a promise of a few short-term jobs, many of us believe Kennecott is buying Marquette County with 30 pieces of silver.

Nothing is over. Contact Wave or Save the Wild U.P. to register your convictions. Whether this mine is stopped or not, people of conscience and goodwill continue to speak, calling our community to vigorously defend our watershed with deeper, more creative visions of a healthy environment and community life.

Rio Tinto plans to drill about 9 miles north of Kenton, in Houghton County, Michigan, on the Ontonagon Ranger District.

Click HERE to see a map of the exploration area.

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.

Two citizen groups — the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council and the Center for Biological Diversity — and Laura Gauger (formerly Furtman), who is a member of both groups, recently filed a Clean Water Act citizen suit against Flambeau Mining Company, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto / Kennecott, over its partially reclaimed Flambeau Mine near Ladysmith, Wis.

To read the rest of Michele Bourdieu’s article visit Keweenaw Now.