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A LITTLE BACKGROUND:
The Part 632 Application Public Hearing/Final Decision Timeline
The Department of Environmental Quality will be hosting three days of Public Hearings in Marquette at the Don H. Bottum University Center to take public comment on the Part 632 Mining Application, the Air Quality Permit, and the Groundwater Discharge permit. Additionally, the Department of Natural Resources will be taking public comment about Kennecott’s application to lease 145 acres of public land on the Yellow Dog Plains to be used as the portal to the mine, processing plant and facilities, crushers, water treatment plant and ponds, waste rock facilities and an aquifer injection facility. The meetings are (Cancelled!) set up for three days, 10 hours each. The public will then have 28 days to send in written comment and the DEQ will then have a minimum of 28 additional days to review public comment and make their final decision.
The final decision date may change due to latitude of the DEQ to request additional time for review, information, etc.
Part 632 - Mining Application - Deficiencies
On June 21, 2006 the DEQ asked for information related to 91 areas of Kennecott’s application. Largely, these requests for additional information from Kennecott were ignored or irrelevant responses were provided. Among the most egregious omissions and errors in Kennecott’s application are the following, all of which are required by statute or rule:
· Kennecott was asked to undertake “rigorous” modeling to assess stability of the crown pillar. Kennecott refused to undertake additional modeling.
· Kennecott admitted that levels of iron and nickel are “likely to be higher than Drinking Water Standards”. Kennecott discusses treatment ideas, but not pollution prevention.
· Kennecott submitted absolutely no additional information even though the DEQ requested “tables and maps clearly describing the impacts to hydrology (base case and upper-bound case) in the area around the ore body.”
· Kennecott has not provided an analysis of the cumulative and additive impacts.
· Kennecott did not provide additional information as requested regarding acid generation for their rock storage facilities.
· Kennecott has not provided complete plans for mitigating or preventing impacts to endangered species.
· Kennecott has not provided an accurate description of the affected area, impacts to natural resources that would result from their operations, and remediation options for repairing those impacts.
· Kennecott refused to provide requested information about monitoring for nitrates from blasting migrating into groundwater.
· Kennecott continues to argue that transportation plans/impacts are not part of the statute and rules and refuse to develop an impact statement about the transportation of ores from the site to their railhead; from the railhead across Michigan; from Michigan across the Soo bridge to Canada and on to Sudbury.
In conclusion, even with Kennecott’s response to the DEQ’s requests for augmentation of their application, the application remains incomplete and inadequate.
MDNR Surface Lease Permit
The DNR does not have a methodology for leasing state lands for extended periods and there is no precedence in the State of Michigan for large amounts of acres being used for such a process. The oil and gas companies may lease and fence in an acre of land on an on-going basis. Kennecott is proposing the lease of 145 acres on the Yellow Dog Plains which includes Eagle Rock. This land will house all the facilities to make this mine work. Eagle Rock is proposed to be used as the mine portal. The surface of the state land will be scraped clean, bermed and then fenced in until the year 2045. Crushers, diesel-generating plants, water treatment plants, 30 acres of waste rock facilities, several water treatment holding ponds, and all the facilities to support the mine will be housed on this state land.
The people of the State of Michigan need to be adamant that this is the people’s land for our enjoyment and use; and be equally adamant about the protection of our natural resources. This is not Kennecott’s land to totally decimate, destroy and fence in.
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Kennecott Minerals and the Yellow Dog Plains
Kennecott Eagle Mining Company (KEMC), a subset of Kennecott Minerals and a fully owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto has an open permit application proposing an underground nickel/copper mine on the Yellow Dog Plains of northern Marquette County of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This mine will be direct-ship, hire 90-120 full time personnel, run for 7-8 years, and extract a small but extremely rich ore body worth $5-13 billion.
The ore body is a massive sulfide magmatic deposit with high acid-potential content of copper and iron sulfides. Kennecott does not own any of the minerals of the ore body, but has leases on 51% of the ore that is the State of Michigan’s and the other 49% which is owned and leased to them by private individuals. Kennecott owns 1600 areas in the area, including the surface over the ore body. Kennecott, however, proposes the use of 160 acres of state land for their surface facilities and tunnel entry for which they have a mineral lease but not yet a surface lease.
The mine design proposes: lined facilities for contact water ponds, waste rock; diesel generating plant; a double reverse osmosis water treatment plant; and a groundwater discharge regime for returning treated water to the aquifer. No processing will be conducted on site except for a surface crusher. The underground workings will be accessed via a drive-in tunnel starting .7 mile from the ore body. An underground cement plant will have surface silos for fly-ash, cement and aggregate. A ventilating shaft located 200 feet from the river (14.6’ x 50’high) will ventilate the total mine workings throwing two million tons of sulfide particulates into the air.
The Huron Peninsula - Michigan’s Last Wild Area
The Yellow Dog Plains sits in the middle of 576,000 acres of undeveloped timber lands made up of hardwood and jack pine barren forests, and massive wetlands - all accessed by only a few seasonal gravel roads, no power or any other facilities.
· 89% Commercial Forest Reserve – open to the public for hunting and fishing with miles and miles of two-track old logging roads for back country recreational activities like snowmobiling, skiing, biking and picking acres of wild blueberries.
· 44,000 + acres of protected and restricted no road access with large untouched old growth forests supporting centuries-old White Pine.
· 17,280 acres of McCormick Wilderness Area – with remote backpacking trails and pristine waterways for backcountry wilderness hiking and camping adventures.
· 26,800 + acres private conservation club (Huron Mountain Club) protecting the Huron Mountains – the oldest mountains in the world and the Salmon Trout River and currently managed via a 1938 Aldo Leopold Report and recommendation.
· Supports wilderness wildlife such as Moose, Wolf, Cougar, Lynx, Black Bear and many other protected or endangered flora and fauna.
· 11 major watersheds with many major water falls, remote scenic rivers, undeveloped lakes and cold spring-fed streams supporting native brook, coaster brook trout and many other fisheries.
· Miles of undeveloped Lake Superior shoreline with historic lighthouses, wildlife refuges, red sandstone cliffs, pristine white sand beaches and the cold clear-blue waters of Lake Superior
Kennecott Entre to Michigan
In 1992, the State of Michigan began leasing state land’s minerals for exploration and development. Kennecott leased hundreds of acres in the Upper Peninsula. In 1994, Kennecott purchased up to 600,000 acres of mineral rights from Ford Motor Company – that were a hold-over from the massive purchase of U.P. lands in the 1940’s. Mineral rights have been severed from surface rights for decades from much of U.P. properties. In 2002, it became clear that they had a strike on the Yellow Dog Plains and when the public generally became aware that something more than exploration was afoot. It is clear that Rio Tinto’s strategy, along with other mining companies (BHP Billeton, Bitterroot Resources and others), to openly explore the Upper Midwest’s massive sulfide ore deposits of the U.P., Wisconsin and Minnesota to establish the next hardrock mining district in the nation.
The Opposition
Current opposition is becoming more and more widespread as Michigan’s people hear about the trade-off of their U.P. and waters for 75 or so jobs. U.P. groups consist of local grassroots/community citizens, the Huron Mountain Club (HMC) and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC). The tribe’s hard stand that sulfide mines, and this particular mine on the Yellow Dog Plains, impose on their ceded territorial rights and the treaties of 1842 ad 1856. Local citizen’s groups and local environmental groups continue to galvanize support via petitions, letters to the government and local officials and public education forums. National/State environmental groups that participated in the development of the new law, have come out in opposition to this project on the Yellow Dog Plains and include: National Wildlife Federation, Michigan Environmental Council, Sierra Club, National Trout Unlimited, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, and Clean Water Action.
We have retained hydrologists, geophysicists, AMD experts, mining engineers, botanists, birding/macroinvertibrate/plant scientists, water chemists, etc., as experts in this issue.
Current Status – Kennecott Permit - Application for the Yellow Dog Plains
The Kennecott application was filed in February, 2006 and has gone through one public meeting where 700+ local residents gave comment in opposition to the application. The application is glaringly deficient and is viewed as a typical mining industry strategy to test the waters and then perfect the application.
KBIC, HMC and YDWP have partnered in a legal challenge of the first step of the application process which is determine “administrative completeness” of the application. After ex parte communication between the administrative law judge and the Dept of Environmental Quality (DEQ) the contested case petition was denied review based on jurisdictional issues. The ruling was appealed to circuit court and remanded back for contested case (CC) AND the permit application was stayed from further processing until the CC hearing took place. The original ALJ was removed from further review of the case and a new ALJ assigned. Both the state and Kennecott have filed appeals and intervention briefs. Kennecott had been denied intervention in circuit court proceedings and is now looking for CC hearing intervention. The state’s appeal to the Michigan court of appeals panel resulted in a dismissal of our suit and a return to the Part 632 application process and timeline. The court of appeals decision was very curt and a paragraph long - in which a very narrow definition of “aggrieved” was applied. We were basically told that we were not aggrieved in this process. There was no discussion of the substantive issue and lawyers for the opposition felt that going to the Michigan supreme court would be of no benefit. On January 9th, 2007, the DEQ issued a preliminary decision to approve Kennecott’s application.
Legal/Substantive Issues - State Land Use/Public Trust –
Kennecott proposes use of 160 acres of state land within the Escanaba State Forest to house their surface faculties and access tunnel to the ore body via a rock outcrop locally called Eagle Rock. This land will be razed, scrubbed and fenced until 2042. This is unprecedented in the state and there is no legislative rule/guideline for such use of state lands. The removal of state land as a site for their facilities would send Kennecott back to the design board and create significant increase in $$ spent to find a safe, cost-effective new access point to the ore body.
The Salmon Trout River. The mine design revolves around extraction of the ore body from underneath the river and headwater wetlands. Subsidence, dewatering, and contamination of this river from AMD fuel the controversy of the site as appropriate for this type of mining.
The Yellow Dog Plains. Proximity to the McCormick Wilderness, the Yellow Dog River (blue ribbon trout stream), HMC old growth forests, fragile wetlands, etc., fuel the same site appropriateness controversy.
The Great Lakes – both the Salmon Trout and the Yellow Dog Rivers feed into Lake Superior – headwaters of the Great Lakes. This is all about our water and the tradeoff of a few jobs that could risk both the nature and the commodity of freshwater resources to Michigan, the nation and the world.
Endangered Species: HMC and Sierra Club have filed for federal ESA status for the last remaining breeding population of native Coaster Brook Trout in the continental United States on the southern Lake Superior shore. These coasters reside in the Salmon Trout river and have been protected/researched by HMC, Michigan Tech University scientists, DNR and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Kirtland’s Warbler – one of the world’s most endangered birds – were spotted and documented on the Yellow Dog Plains by the U.S. FWS.
Additionally, American Rivers put the Salmon Trout River as #4 on their 2006 list of Most Endangered Rivers in America. Here is a link: http://www.americanrivers.org
The current application’s deficiencies are many and the DEQ had issued a letter to KEMC noting 91 areas of requiring further information. Experts hired by the opposition note significant issues in surface water, groundwater, crown pillar modeling, design and baseline study methodologies. Basic transportation, noise, light, flora/fauna, and other environmental impact study application requirements were blatantly ignored.
Tribal ceded territory and sovereign rights will be brought to the fore. Additionally, cultural/sacred rights to the rock outcrop (Eagle Rock) on state land will be challenged.
Technical merits and demonstration standards of the application itself.
Transportation of sulfide ores from the mining site to points outside of Michigan. Residents and citizens are up in arms about sulfide ore trucks passing by their homes creating health and safety issues.
Conclusion
The entre of Kennecott and other hardrock mining majors into the U.P. of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota threatens the waters of the Great Lakes, the last remaining wild areas of the upper Midwest, and the quality of life of residents of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and other northern regions. We feel this issue could galvanize the people of the state to referendum. The legal battle could go on for years. The question is Kennecott’s patience in waiting for this very rich ore deposit and the millions they are wishing to expend.
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