October 23, 2009
Dear WRPC Member,
The long-awaited decision in the contested case hearing on Kennecott’s Eagle Project on the Yellow Dog Plains in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula came in August. Administrative Law Judge Richard Patterson sided with Kennecott and Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) on all issues except the use of Eagle Rock as the portal (entryway) for the mine. In response to the objections of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), the Huron Mountain Club, the National Wildlife Federation and the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, the judge recommended that the portal be moved elsewhere and that the Rock, which is a sacred site for KBIC, not be fenced in and therefore accessible by Native and
non-Native alike. Patterson stated that Kennecott and the MDEQ “did not properly address the impact on the sacred rock outcrop known as Eagle Rock as a place of worship.”
