[Updated, 12:02 p.m.] Citing potential damage to the Bad River watershed, Ojibwe bands are asking the US Environmental Protection Agency to review the proposed mountain-top removal/open-pit iron ore mine in NW Wisconsin before other federal reviews are undertaken.
Text of the Bands' letter to the EPA, here.
The EPA has already granted Bad River water quality control to the Bad River Band because the river runs through its reservation downriver to Lake Superior from the mine site. (More, here).
EPA intervention could delay or shut down subsequent reviews by the US Army Corps of Engineers, much as an EPA intervention recently killed a proposed gold mine in Alaska that threatened clean waters there.
The iron ore mine could harm the Bad River Band's drinking water and wild-rice growing beds; mining waste could release toxic acids and some wetlands would be used as waste dumps for up to 35 years.
All these potential procedural and legal delays were well-known to mine proponents and so-called free market lobbies who rigged state law and tax policies through GOP/Walkerite initiatives to force the mine onto local residents and the environment.
Their goal - - further enhanced by Walker's creation DNR top management with a "chamber of commerce mentality" - - his words and follow-through - - is make the proposed mine a profit center for the privately-owned coal-mining company that wants to make its first run at open-pit iron mining on the Bad River watershed.
I'd noted the Alaska mine opposition, here.
You're probably correct that this is Scott Walker's end-game. What does he care? He'll be long gone once the permanent damage is done. Some Governor, huh?
ReplyDeleteI think this is an issue that Mary Burke and her campaign can bring to the public's attention. I don't think Wisconsin citizens want to see our lands sold off to China.