Enviros React To MDEQ Kennecott Approval - Jul 30: Michigan environmental groups, including Michigan Environmental Council (MEC), Michigan League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and the Sierra Club’s Michigan Chapter, reacted immediately to the MDEQ's announcement of its preliminary approval of the Kennecott Eagle Project near Marquette [See WIMS 7/30/07]. The groups called the proposal "flawed" and said it "ignores gaping shortcomings in the mining safety plan and puts the region’s economy and natural resources at risk."
    MEC spokesman Hugh McDiarmid Jr said, “This is the first of what may be an influx of applications to do this new and dangerous type of mining in the U.P. It’s gambling the future of this entire region of the U.P. for the payoff of a few dozen temporary jobs. When the minerals are gone, so will the London-based mining company, so it’s important we hold them to the highest environmental standards. But instead of setting tough standards to protect water quality and public health, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) seems content to allow vague assurances for parts of this plan rather than rock-solid specifics. They’re setting the bar too low.”
    According to a joint release from the groups, the mine would be the first in the U.P.’s modern era to drill in a sulfide rock formation. They said, "That type of rock, when brought to the surface, leaches sulfuric acid and toxic heavy metals. If handled improperly, the pollutants could devastate the pristine headwaters of the Salmon-Trout River and contaminate Lake Superior." They indicated that, sulfide mines elsewhere have "a dark legacy of resource degradation, collapse, heavy-metal pollution, and undetected and untreatable failures of safety liners and monitoring equipment."
    Brad Garmon, land programs director with MEC said, “We’ve read the same application as the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and we don’t see how they arrive at the conclusion that this is a viable permit. Michigan leaders drafted legislation and rules specifically to protect the UP’s most valuable asset -- its environment. The state’s people and leaders are being undercut by a flawed application of that law. Any permit application that fails to satisfy the most basic requirements should be denied and sent back to the drawing board.”
    Access a release from environmental groups (click here). Access the WIMS-EcoBizPort Special Report on the Kennecott Mining Proposal for previous WIMS articles, links and background information (click here). [*MIAll]