WRPC website address: http://www.wrpc.net/index.html

May 25, 2001
Dear WRPC/WATER Network Member,

The Crandon mine project has once again changed ownership. The London-based South African company Billiton, which purchased Rio Algom in October 2000, has merged with the notorious Australian mining company, Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP). BHP is no stranger to Town of Nashville residents. In 1996 BHP Minerals International applied to the town's zoning committee for a conditional use permit to conduct mineral exploration drilling in the area west of Bishop Lake. The permit was denied because the use was not consistent with the development pattern in the town's land use plan and did not meet the health and welfare concerns that a majority of the residents expressed in the survey relating to mineral exploration and development.

BHP then filed a lawsuit against the township and the members of the zoning board, threatening each member of the zoning committee with confiscation of their property and/or wages. This is a classic example of a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit, designed to discourage opposition to corporate projects. The town's board of adjustment then overturned the zoning committee's decision and gave BHP permission to drill. The lawsuit was dropped.

BHP is most notorious for its record at the Ok Tedi mine in Papua, New Guinea (PNG), where it has been dumping over 80,000 tons per day of contaminated waste rock and tailings directly into the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers. As a result, significant portions of these rivers are biologically dead. A recent World Bank report called for an immediate closure of the mine because of the environmental damage being caused by the mine.

In 1994, 30,000 village landholders in the Fly River basin sued BHP in Australian courts for environmental damages from the mine which polluted the rivers and damaged their way of life. In response to the suit, BHP drafted legislation for the PNG Parliament that made it a crime to sue BHP, with fines of up to $75,000. Are you outraged yet? Hold on. The bill also applied the same fines to anyone who attempted to challenge the constitutionality of the law in PNG courts.

The change of ownership does nothing to change the longstanding opposition to the project and the fundamental technical problems that have plagued the project for the last 25 years. The most recent estimate from the DNR is that a final decision on the mine permit is at least two years away (see WSJ article enclosed). Even that estimate assumes that the fundamental flaws in the company's groundwater computer model can be fixed. There is also the question of the local agreement with the Town of Nashville and whether any township can bargain away its zoning and regulatory powers to a mining company. That issue will be decided by a Wisconsin Appeals Court (see MJS article enclosed.) Finally, there is the proposed ban on cyanide in Wisconsin mines. Please contact your legislators and ask them to support AB 95 or SB 160 (see WSJ article.). Stay tuned.

Al Gedicks, Exec Sec.     
WRPC website: www.wrpc.net