by Dave Blouin and Al Gedicks
In their May 7 opinion piece “Unlock minerals in Wisconsin,” representatives of the Wisconsin and National Mining Associations grossly misrepresent the facts to sway the public in favor of mining law reforms for gold and base metals. Their rhetoric is designed to hide the fact that their No. 1 goal is to repeal Wisconsin’s landmark “prove it first” Mining Moratorium Law.
May 2, 2013
Dear WRPC Member,
Gogebic Taconite and their supporters in the legislature succeeded in passing the Bad River Watershed Destruction Act but they are losing the battle for public acceptance of mountaintop removal mining in the Penokee Hills. The financial interests behind the legislation, including the Cline Group and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, contributed $15.6 million to the Republican-controlled legislature and GOP Governor Scott Walker between 2010 and June 2012, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. They also found that mining deregulation interests outspent opponents of mining deregulation by 610 to 1.
Tribal leaders, environmentalists and local officials have united to fight a massive mine which could be toxic to a water-rich area known as “Wisconsin’s Everglades.”
The highly unpopular iron mine giveaway bill is not only a major rollback of environmentally protective mining laws, it is also a well-funded mining industry assault on the grass-roots environmental, sport fishing and tribal movement that mobilized tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens to oppose Exxon’s destructive Crandon mine at the headwaters of the Wolf River and enact Wisconsin’s landmark “Prove It First” Mining Moratorium Law in 1998.
by Eric Hansen
Take a moment to think about northern Wisconsin’s Penokee Hills. Picture the vast swath of forested ridges, the shady glens where pristine water flows from headwaters springs. . . .
Now, imagine the Penokee’s ridgeline, and the sparkling water of its trout streams, turned into an industrial sacrifice zone – on a scale that is almost beyond belief.
Read the rest of Eric Hansen’s article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
By Al Gedicks and Dave Blouin
Duluth News Tribune
How is it possible that the Wisconsin legislature is ready to pass legislation to create fast-tracked, less-protective ferrous (iron) mining laws for what promises be the largest open-pit iron mine in the world with no scientific evidence to justify treating iron mining differently than other metallic mining?
If Gogebic Taconite proceeds with a proposal, its first phase of mining alone would be larger than the acknowledged largest iron mine in the world, the Hull Rust Mahoning Mine in Hibbing. The taconite ore body in northern Wisconsin is known to run 22 miles, meaning the expansion of mining after phase one could result in an even larger mine with more potential to destroy rivers, streams, wetlands and groundwater.
The main proponents of an iron mining bill in Wisconsin — including Gogebic Taconite, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Mining Association — have misled legislators with claims that the iron ore in Ashland and Iron counties is more environmentally safe compared to metallic sulfide mining and thus requires separate regulations.
Wisconsin State Journal
Sunday, February 10
The framing of the mining controversy by mainstream media as an issue of jobs vs. environmental protection gives short shrift to the issue of cultural survival for the Bad River Chippewa tribe.
Tribal chairman Mike Wiggins Jr. has testified that the sulfide minerals in the waste rock from the largest open pit taconite mine in the world would pose a threat to the tribe’s sacred wild rice beds on the Bad River reservation.
by Al Gedicks
Z Magazine, February 2013
Prior to investing in new resource colonies, multinational mining corporations frequently change a country’s mining laws to remove restrictions on foreign ownership, reduce taxes, ease environmental protections and guarantee access to water supplies needed for mining. During the 1990s, under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, over 90 states in the Global South changed their mining laws to attract foreign mining investment. These neocolonial measures, often called “neoliberal reforms,” are now being used to open up new mining projects in the Lake Superior region of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.
An unlikely coalition has lined up against mining companies and the Republicans who love them.
by David Giffey
Mark your calendar for noon Saturday, January 26. That’s the scheduled birth of a “new coalition” of Native American tribes, environmental and sport fishing groups, and friends, who will gather at the capitol in Madison in a statewide demonstration opposing another attempt to destroy Wisconsin’s prized moratorium on metallic sulfide mining. Your presence is welcome. No RSVP required.
The January 26 demonstration will be “a very powerful counterweight” to new legislation seen as paving a way to eventually destroy Wisconsin’s 1998 “prove it first” law, says Al Gedicks, of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council . Republican leaders including Governor Walker have said they’ll introduce The Bad River Watershed Destruction Act (that’s its popular title) this month. The bill is also called Gogebic Taconite’s (GTac) Strip Mine legislation.
Al Gedicks and Dave Blouin
Isthmus, January 22, 2013
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) should be paying Isthmus contributor Larry Kaufmann for his able job of parroting their misleading talking points on the new mining bill introduced last week by GOP mining cheerleaders. The “new” version of AB 426, the Strip Mine Giveaway Bill (AB 1/SB 1), is essentially the same bill from last session.
