This map of Aquila Resources’ proposed Back 40 mining project shows wetlands in the area of the mine site, which is only 150 feet from the Menominee River. Aquila recently withdrew from its appeal on the January 2021 denial of its wetland permit. Click on map for larger version. (Map courtesy Kathleen Heideman of the Mining Action Group)
A Michigan Circuit Court judge last month asked that a 2019 decision to approve a mining permit for Aquila Resources should be revisited, according to nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice. In the order, the judge directed that additional evidence was needed in the original permit application, including documented concerns from Michigan environmental regulators regarding flawed groundwater modeling.
Another permit has been called into question for Aquila Resources’ plans to build the Back Forty mine near the Menominee River on the Michigan-Wisconsin border. A Michigan judge recently ruled the company’s mining permit [1] should be sent back for further review of the mine’s potential impacts on groundwater.
The Menominee River, named after the Menominee Indians of Wisconsin, is the largest river system in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It forms the border between northeast Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is currently the focus of a struggle over a proposed metallic sulfide mine known as the Back Forty Project.
Back Forty Mine along Wisconsin border faces insufficient funding, increasing opposition.
by Al Gedicks
July 26, 2020
![Aftermath of the Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil. Photo by TV NBR [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]](https://urbanmilwaukee.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Resumo_da_agenda_do_Presidente_da_República_26.01.2019_video_screenshot_01_cropped.jpg)
Aftermath of the Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil. Photo by TV NBR (CC BY 3.0)
The controversial proposed Back Forty open pit metallic sulfide mine on the Michigan-Wisconsin border has suffered major financial and permitting setbacks due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and increasing public concerns over the safety of tailings dams to store mine waste. The proposed mine, would be located next to the Menominee River, which flows into Lake Michigan, and has raised concerns about potential pollution.
by Carol Thompson
February 10, 2020
LANSING — A Wisconsin tribe is challenging Michigan’s decision to issue a permit for an open-pit mine proposed in the Upper Peninsula, the latest in a series of attempts to stop the controversial project from moving forward.
by Michele Bourdieu
February 3, 2020
LANSING, Mich.; KASHENA, Wis. — In its efforts to protect the Menominee River from the dangers of Acid Mine Drainage and to save sacred cultural sites near the river from being destroyed, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (MITW) is still pushing back against a federal and state permitting process that ignores their concerns about Aquila Resources’ proposed open-pit sulfide mine threatening both Wisconsin and Michigan, the two states bordering the river.
A federal appeals court panel told a Wisconsin tribe this week it can’t review a decision by two federal agencies that reinforced Michigan’s permitting authority over a proposed mine on the Michigan-Wisconsin border.
The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers in 2018 after the agencies failed to address the tribe’s concerns that federal review of a wetlands permit for the mine was warranted.
by Isiah Holmes
December 18, 2019
A proposed open pit sulfide mine along the Wisconsin-Michigan border, owned by Canada-based Aquila Resources, has stirred controversy ever since the Menominee Tribe first highlighted the danger it would pose to their sacred lands over a year ago. Called the Back Forty mine, it would operate right in the heart of the Great Lakes basin.
Mine on Wisconsin border would use approach that has resulted in 46 catastrophic failures in last 20 years.
by Al Gedicks
December 13, 2019
For the communities downstream from the proposed Back Forty open pit mine on the Michigan-Wisconsin border, the threat of a massive release of toxic mine waste into the Menominee River is a nightmare scenario. Why would Wisconsin and Michigan residents put up with what Brazil will not? After a catastrophic mine tailings dam collapse in Brumadinho, Brazil killed 270 people in January of 2019 Brazil not only banned that design for future mines, but mandated that every existing mine tailings dam of that design be decommissioned. The dam collapse was the world’s deadliest in more than 50 years.
