The New York Times reports, “(A) remote area of Michigan … is rediscovering its mining roots — raising hopes … across much of the Lake Superior region that a mining revival is in the making. With copper and other metals trading on commodities markets at consistently high prices, companies are digging into long-neglected deposits for metals that could be worth billions of dollars.”
“(The British-Australian mining corporation) Rio Tinto … is working on a $469 million mine that will produce nickel and copper. (Toronto-based) Hudbay Minerals … is leading an expected $225 million project to mine precious and heavy metals, including gold, silver, zinc and copper. (Toronto-based) Orvana Minerals Corp. has received approval to mine chalcocite, a mineral that is primarily copper, in a project here that the company says will create $2 billion in economic activity over 20 years.”
“In the woods outside of Marquette (in Michigan), Rio Tinto last fall started blasting to reach an ore body that was identified in 2002 and is as much as 1,000 feet below the surface. The mine’s footprint is a 130-acre, secure construction zone. Rio Tinto cleared all the trees except on a rocky outcrop sacred to a local Native American tribe, and has put up facilities including a water treatment plant. …Rio Tinto plans to start pulling ore out in 2013.”
“Some 150 miles south, Hudbay Minerals, working with (another Toronto-based company) Aquila Resources, expects to apply this year for permits for a mine that the companies estimate would create hundreds of jobs and generate $27 million in taxes.”
“In Wisconsin, (Florida-based) Gogebic Taconite dropped a proposed $1.5 billion, open-pit iron ore project after lawmakers failed to adopt a bill that critics say would have relaxed environmental regulations and limited public input in the permitting process. Gogebic Taconite is now drilling for iron in Michigan.”
“Smaller exploration firms are joining the rush too, searching for new ore deposits and studying known ones. One of them (Vancouver-based) Highland Resources is spending $11.5 million to explore and develop potential mines, including two copper mines near Calumet, Michigan.”
Impact on the Great Lakes
“(But) there are worries about the environmental fallout of the new mining, and about how sustainable a mining-led recovery might be. …Some are concerned the mining could hurt waterways and especially Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. A collection of environmental groups said that state and provincial laws, and enforcement, are inconsistent and inadequate.”
“‘No entity is really looking at all of these impacts at any one mine, much less all the impacts across the whole basin and really thinking about what would this mean for the region and Lake Superior, the headwaters of the Great Lakes,’ said Michelle Halley, a lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation, which is one of several parties suing to stop the Rio Tinto mine. The group has (also) made suggestions on how Orvana could make its plans more environmentally friendly.”
“(In Michigan), the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa Indians), concerned about the pollution, has asked the United Nations to investigate. The United States in 2010 endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognizes the rights of natives to protect their lands and resources.”
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow has just completed an eight-city tour around the Great Lakes (including to Thunder Bay on Lake Superior) calling for their recognition as a public trust, commons and protection bio-region. Additional tour stops are now being planned in the United States, including in Michigan.
The full New York Times article can be read at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/business/in-mining-some-michigan-towns-see-hope.html.
