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HLatest
News
Al
Gedicks Re: Nashville Summary Judgement Hearing
December 2000
Mediator
involved in talks over Crandon mine agreement - Dec 4, 2000
Power
line is a threat to state - Dec 3, 2000
November 2000
Jauch:
PSC members should be at hearings -
Nov
9, 2000
SOUL
challenges the need for power line -
Nov
2, 2000
Power
line needed to meet Wisconsin's energy demands - Nov 2, 2000
October 2000
Nader
Calls on South African Company Billiton to Drop Crandon Mine Plans in Wisconsin
- Oct 30, 2000
Green
ranked low on environment - Oct 25, 2000
Request
for more power lines hearings denied - Oct 25, 2000
Al
Gedicks Re: Nashville Summary Judgement Hearing - Oct 24, 2000
Nader
running mate finds support in Point - Oct 19, 2000
Geske
delays ruling on motions in Crandon mine dispute - Oct 19, 2000
Making
the Connections Between Dams, Transmission Lines, and Mine, by Winona La Duke
October 19, 2000
Marathon
Board nixes power line - Oct 18, 2000
FEIS
issued for 345 kV line - Oct 18, 2000
Billiton
Buys Rio Algom - Oct 18, 2000
Press
on South African company takeover of Crandon mine - Oct 18, 2000
Rio
Algom gone-Billiton urged to abandon Crandon - Oct 17, 2000
Environmental
study sets stage for public hearings on power line - Oct 13, 2000
Sawyer
County business leaders say power line is needed - Oct 13, 2000
Response
from Billiton - Oct 9, 2000
CRANDON
MINE ALERT: E-mail Billiton - Oct 5, 2000
Not
Dead Yet - The Crandon Mine - Oct 4, 2000
September 2000
Arrowhead
Transmission Line = Crandon Mine Powerline - Sept 17, 2000
Summer 2000
Summer
2000 Downstream by Mining Impact
Coalition of Wisconsin Inc.
August 2000
Merger
bid won't affect mine plans, officials say - Aug 29, 2000
Billiton
Offers $1.2B for Rio Algom - Aug 26, 2000
Big
Movers in the Stock Market - Aug 22, 2000
Abandoned
mine comes clean in tests - Aug 19, 2000
Crandon
mine plan is poisoned even further - Aug 16, 2000
Geske
to preside over legal fight involving Crandon mine - Aug 11, 2000
Former
high court justice appointed to Crandon case - Aug 11, 2000
June 2000
The
Crandon mine at a glance - June 5, 2000
How
dry can they make the mine? June 5, 2000
Nicolet
contends Wisconsin is a tough place to mine - June 5, 2000
Moratorium
law protects Wisconsin's 'liquid gold' - June 5, 2000
Moratorium
bill proves to be a legal jumble - June 4, 2000
Menominees
are highly skeptical about 'safe' mining - June 4, 2000
Rice
Lake is priceless to the Chippewa - June 4, 2000
The
pride of Nashville - June 4, 2000
Despite
uproar, Nicolet prevails - June 4, 2000
About
that other mine - Flambeau hired 33 people, built a nature trail, and took $750
million in ore - June 4, 2000
The
closed mine at Ladysmith gives off acid, but so far it's legal - June 4, 2000
Rio
Algom will do well - if metal prices rise - June 4, 2000
May 2000
Gambling
with the Wolf: The Crandon Mine - May 10. 2000
March 2000
Capitol
lobbying - March 26, 2000
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FPLEASE
HELP SAVE THE WOLF RIVER!!!!! STOP EXXON MINING! |
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The
Wolf River in Wisconsin, known to the Menominee Indian
people as "Mahwaew Sepew", is critically
endangered. In fact, in August of 1999, it was
named as the #1 most endangered river in the United
States. The danger comes from proposed zinc and
copper mining. |
"No copper sulfide has ever been successfully mined anywhere in the
world," said Bob Molzahn, chair of the Endangered Fisheries Committee.
"It's frightening to think we would risk this magnificent and irreplaceable
waterway with a technology that is unproven, and with such a tremendous
potential for environmental devastation."
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The
Plan to Rape the Earth
Rio
Algom's Nicolet Minerals Company, a former Exxon company, is proposing to build one of the largest
zinc and copper mines in North America along the Wolf River. The pristine river
is one of America's best preserved waterways, flowing roughly 250 miles from its
headwater lakes in Northern Wisconsin to Lake Michigan. It is one of the
midwest's few remaining clean, large, whitewater trout rivers. Mine waste from
the project would cover an area the size of 350 football fields and would stand
90 feet high.
For centuries the Menominee People
have preserved this land for future generations. They are the dreams of
their ancestors and they have inherited the responsibility
of being the vanguards of their language, culture, land, and natural resources.
They now ask you to share in this endeavor as a people equally responsible for
preserving Wisconsin's environment. What we do to our mother, the Earth,
we do to ourselves.
"As long as those valuable metals are in the ground, we as humans
can never rest because the beast of greed and exploitation will be over
our heads and over generations who inhabit this part of the country to
the end of eternity." Hilary J.
"Sparky" Waukau, Menominee Elder, Supreme Court Justice, Legislator,
County Administrator,
WWII Combat Veteran at Tarawa & Saipan
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One of the Largest Zinc-Copper
Deposits in North America
On the Wolf River is an ore body that is a
vertical slab about one mile long and 200 feet wide. It extends about 2800
feet deep. It contains one of the largest zinc-copper deposits in North
America. Exxon wants to dig an underground mine to extract 55 million tons
of zinc-copper over about 25 years.
These minerals are found as massive sulfides, or rocks formed by minerals in
combination with sulphur. Unlike iron mining, sulfide rock can produce
sulfuric acid, as well as high levels of poisonous heavy metals like mercury,
lead, zinc, arsenic, copper and cadmium, when exposed to air or water during and
after mining. The drainage from acid mines like this one proposed is
regarded as the single largest cause of negative environmental impacts resulting
from mining.
Acidity and radioactivity are linked.
Acid formation will lower the pH of the water and lead to the dissolution of
toxic substances.
Exxon admits that there is uranium in the
orebody but argues that it is only trace amounts. However, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that even were the uranium
content is below detection levels at other sulfide mines, toxic radon
concentrations were at levels which posed health hazards to humans working the
mines.
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| Menominee people have an intimate connection with the Wolf River that
transcends for thousands of years. It is our lifeblood and any damage to it
would be devastating. Rio Algom's Nicolet Minerals Company (NMC) mine (formerly
Exxon) would poison our water, kill our fish, destroy our forests and ruin our
tourist industry. It would desecrate and destroy our cultural properties and our
burial sites. We must continue our fight and not become the mining company's
experiment... We are not only fighting to protect our future but that of
generations yet to come. Apesanahkwat, Chairman,
Menominee Nation
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Killing the
Fish!
According to the U.S. Bureau of Mines, mine
wastes have poisoned over 10,000 miles of rivers. The release of these
wastes into the environment has resulted in many cases of fish kills, such as
the dramatic trout kill on Montana's Clark Fork River and the recent cyanide
spill from a gold mine in Guayana, South America, that resulted in dead fish and
hogs floating down Guyana's biggest river. The Wisconsin State Council of
Trout Unlimited has passed a
resolution opposing any permits for the proposed mine.
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The Largest
Toxic Waste Dump in the History of Wisconsin
Over its lifetime, the mine would
generate about 44 million tons of wastes. Half of the waste--rocky "coarse
tailings" would be dumped to fill up the mine shafts. The other half of the
waste--powdery "fine tailings"--would be dumped into a waste pond
about 90 feet tall and covering 355 acres. At a size of about 340 football
fields, not only would it be larger that most towns in the state, it would be
the largest toxic waste dump in Wisconsin history.
The wastes would have to be isolated from the
environment forever. Exxon proposes to put a cover on the top and a liner on the
botttom. Basically, we're talking about a big plastic bag sitting at the
headwaters of the Wolf River, and liners leak. The Wisconsin DNR says that
the proposed clay liner at the bottom of the mine waste "would not provide
adequate protection to the groundwater." Jerry Goodrich, president of
the Crandon Mining Company, believes the plastic liner underneath the toxic mine
waste will dissolve in 140 years. "We're saying after 140 years it
vaporizes. It's gone." But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
criticized the company for failing to take into account the long term ground
water contamination from the mine, which could persist for 9,000
years!
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Our children's
future is at stake!
Future generations will face the ever-present
threat of the mine waste ponds either flooding or collapsing. The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service says that the waste dump "should either be designed for
guaranteed protection of the resources in perpetuity, or the project should be
postponed until such technology is available."
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The lesson of the recent mine waste disaster in
Guyana is that the best available technology at the time may be inadequate to
stand the test of time. There are absolutely no examples of successfully
reclaimed metallic sulfide mines where the mine is closed, the water treatment
plant is shut down and the water runs pure and clean. The U.S. Forest Service
says that "there are major technical uncertainties associated with the
prediction of acid drainage potential at the time of mine plan approval as well
as with mitigation or treatment techniques for post-mining use." In
other words, if you can't predict which wastes will result in acid drainage, you
can't develop controls to prevent acid drainage. Once started, acid drainage
cannot be shut off; it becomes a "perpetual pollution machine."
The
Crandon Mining Company's
own plans for
containment of the mine
wastes have been
criticized as inadequate
and lacking scientific
support by an
independent mine waste
expert hired by the
former Public Intervenor.
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Groundwater
Drawdown
Exxon's proposed mine could cause
a drastic and irreparable drop in the water levels of lakes and streams in a
four-square mile area. Over about 28 years, it would pump out up to 1,000
gallons of water per minute and over one MILLION a day. According to the
Public Intervenor, "the protection of public rights in water is an absolute
limit on DNR's ability to permit this project, so this issue becomes
crucial."
There is serious disagreement
between DNR consultants, Crandon Mining and Dr. Douglas S. Cherkauer, an
independent expert on groundwater hired by the Public Intervenor on the
connection between groundwater and area lakes. Crandon Mining argues there
is little, if any connection, between the lakes and the groundwater
system. If this groundwater model is accepted, the data would seem to show
an insignificant water drawdown from mine pumping. This is exactly the scenario that occurred during the permitting process in the
1980s. Exxon at that time designed its model so as to minimize likely
impacts on the lakes. When the model's shortcomings were pointed out,
Exxon essentially refused to modify the model to simulate a reasonably
conservative set of conditions.
Based on an examination of Crandon
Mining's data, Dr. Cherkauer concluded that it does not support the company's
argument of minimal connection between the lakes and the groundwater.
Quite to the contrary, "The lakes currently provide recharge to the
groundwater system. Declines in
ground-water heads due to mine pumping will induce more water to flow out of
these lakes, thus upsetting the water balance of their water budgets." This
is like the bottom of a bathtub when the water is draining out.
Most recently, divers in Little Sand Lake, less than a mile from the mine site,
have confirmed the existence of spring holes in the bottom of the lake. The U.S.
Geological Survey has confirmed that rock samples taken from the lake bottom
indicate groundwater spring activity fed through the lake bed. The DNR has done
further drilling at the site to determine the extent of this connection.
In order to mitigate the groundwater drawdown, the mining company proposes to
pump water from deeper levels of the aquifer. According to Dr. Arthur S. Brooks,
a biologist hired by the Public Intervenor, "the net effect of mitigation
pumping will be to alter the natural flow of groundwater and to disperse toxic
metals from the project site through a diffuse system of streams and
lakes."
The U.S. Army Engineer Waterways
Experiment Station said that this groundwater model is "not suitable"
to analyze the potential effects of groundwater drawdown. Instead, they
recommended that the modeling be done by independent scientists because
"with even state-of-the-art models one could bias the results to show any
desired result from the project."
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Wastewater
Discharge to the Wisconsin River
"If we can't protect the Wolf, there'll be no Crandon mine." Jerry
Goodrich, Crandon Mining Company President
The day after American Rivers designated the
Wolf River as a threatened river, Exxon announced it was abandoning its plans to
dump treated waste water into the Wolf River. Instead, the company said
that it would build a 40-mile pipeline and divert the waste water into the
Wisconsin River near Rhinelander. Because the Wisconsin River is not as
protected as the Wolf, the company would not have to spend as much treating the
discharge.
This new plan threatens pollution of both the Wolf and the Wisconsin rivers. The
threat to the Wolf remains because the mine wastes would still be stored at the
headwaters of the Wolf. The discharge of waste water into the Wisconsin could
result in the bioaccumulation of heavy metals in aquatic organisms and changes
in the natural species composition of the river. The Wisconsin State
Council of Trout Unlimited has said that "Wastewater that is unacceptable
to an 'Outstanding Resource Water' like the Wolf River is no more appropriate to
discharge below a paper mill and hydroelectric dam on Wisconsin's
namesake river."
Actually, this plan could increase groundwater depletion in the area of the mine
because of the amount of water necessary to pump the wastes to
Rhinelander. The DNR has not collected baseline data on the heavy metals
already in the river below the Hat Rapids dam and therefore has no scientific
basis to conclude that this mine's wastewater discharge could meet the state's
effluent limits for pollutants that have the potential to accumulate in river
organisms.
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