GOP Legislators Bow To Mining Company, Again

Republican legislators and Gov. Walker continue to bow and scrape before the GTAC iron mine and its out-of-state mountain-top removing owners.

Bad enough that they all went behind closed doors and wrote a sweetheart bill that let the company dynamite away pristine hills and wetlands in the Bad River watershed and haul out low-grade ore from an open pit more initially than four miles long, 700 feet deep and a half-mile wide.

But now the same Republican politicians, exaggerating the scope of a confrontation between a handful of protesters and a test drilling crew that led to a single arrest are again gearing up the entire state legislative machinery - - this time to restrict access to thousands of acres of forest land near the mine site to which the public is guaranteed access. 

The land is leased to the mining company, but, by law is open to hunters, hikers and others because the land's owners have received tax breaks in exchange for the open access.

Another sellout of the public's interest and resources.

And an abrogation of treaties with the Ojibwe who ceded the land in exchange for access, and the state constitution's Public Trust Doctrine which guarantees unfettered access to any lake, river or stream in the forest.