Mining in the Penokee Hills
I’ve devoted several recent
“Political Matters” columns to the environmental threat posed by
sulfide mining in northeastern Minnesota, the proposed PolyMet mine.
This month, I’ll change things up and write about taconite mining.
Specifically, Gogebic Taconite, LLC (GTAC) is considering developing
what reportedly could become the largest open pit mine in North
America.
GTAC’s big dig, just south of the Bad
River reservation, would be 4.5 miles long, 1.5 mile wide and 1,000
feet deep. The Wisconsin DNR states that, if developed, “the
project would likely include an open pit mining operation, a plant
site and waste disposal facilities.”
The GTAC project, as you might imagine,
has sparked controversy across northern Wisconsin. I talked recently
with Cyrus Hester, an environmental specialist with the Bad River
Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa.
Hester brought me up to speed on
various aspects of the GTAC project. The company is doing “mineral
exploration using drill cores,” which has been approved by state
officials. GTAC also recently received approval for “bulk
sampling,” which means the excavation of between 2,100 to 10,000
tons of bedrock. This bulk samples would be excavated “from some
sites that had been blasted by U.S. Steel,” in the 1950s and ‘60s.
“This is simply to look at the
grindability of the rock, so that they can develop appropriate
milling machinery for future taconite processing,” Hester
explained.
He said that the bulk sampling could go
on for “a couple weeks”; however, in mid-February, Bad River
Tribal Chairman Mike Wiggins sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, asking the feds to stop GTAC from using large
trucks to remove tons of rock samples from two sites in Iron County,
according to a Wisconsin Public Radio report.
Bad River – along with the other
northern Wisconsin bands, including Lac du Flambeau, Lac Courte
Oreilles and Red Cliff – are monitoring the GTAC project, which is
located within 1842 Treaty ceded territory; the Ojibwe bands have
retained hunting, fishing and gathering rights in the area.
And the GTAC mine is “located
entirely with the Bad River watershed,” Hester pointed out. Waters
from the area feed into the Bad River, “which flows through the
reservation, into the Bad River-Kakagon complex – this is a
wetlands complex that was recognized under the Ramsar Convention as
being of international significance … and then it continues on to
Lake Superior.”
The Band River band “has another
layer of involvement,” in Hester’s words, because it has
implemented federally-approved water quality standards. And waters
flowing out of the proposed GTAC mine “would have to comply with
those standards that the tribe has set.”
And, like the situation in Minnesota,
with the Fond du Lac band’s role in protecting wild rice waters,
the Bad River reservation’s “coastal wetlands host the largest
beds of wild rice in the Great Lakes,” according to Hester, a
non-Indian who has been employed by the band for the past four years.
He said that his role as an
environmental specialist at Bad River, vis-à-vis the proposed GTAC
mine, has “become rather holistic, given that there’s a whole
suite of changes in the environment that could affect the tribe’s
natural resources.”
Hester said that generally his position
involves protecting the tribe’s natural resources from degradation,
both in the ceded territories and on-reservation; but “sometimes
some projects are located in very difficult sites and there aren’t
engineering solutions [to mitigate environmental harm], in which case
we would recommend that a project not be permitted, if it can’t
demonstrate the ability to comply with water quality standards, or
otherwise impair the reservation environment.”
In 2013, Scott Walker, the Tea Party
governor of the Dairy State, signed a mining bill (Chapter 295 of the
Wisconsin Administrative Code) into law. I’ve read some commentary
on this new law, and I asked Hester if 295 “gutted” environmental
oversight.
“As a conservative scientist, that’s
not the word I would use, but the gist is right, the gist is still on
target,” he replied, and added that 295 made “significant changes
from the existing regulations for metallic mining.”
In this regard, Hester noted that the
GTAC project, although it’s ferrous (iron ore) mining, would likely
dig up sulfide ore, too. “So some of the effects that you might get
from a sulfide mine may be seen here as well,” he commented.
“Certainly mining of this scale, regardless of whether or not it
generates acid, can have significant impacts on the environment.”
As we concluded our phone chat, Hester
also mentioned that grunerite, a mineral containing asbestos-like
fibers, has been found around the Penokee mine site. GTAC previously
had denied the presence of grunerite, which is linked to cause lung
cancer, mesothelioma and pulmonary fibrosis (asbestosis).
This column just scratches the surface
of the GTAC story.
