Newsletters 1997

September 1, 1997
April 28, 1997

Dear WRPC/WATER Network Member,

While Exxon continues to spend big bucks trying to defeat the Mining Moratorium Bill (see WSJ, 8/22/97 and Capital Times 8/16/97 enclosed), our grassroots organizing is building toward the Assembly vote on the bill this fall. About 75 members of ECCOLA (Environmentally Concerned Citizens of Lakeland Areas) and POWR (Protect Our Wisconsin River) turned out on July 12 for an impressive canoe flotilla on Lake Alice to raise awareness about Exxon's plans to dump mine wastewater into the Wisconsin River.

Meanwhile, the Wolf Watershed Educational Project (WWEP) has been busy with its statewide speaking/organizing tour on the proposed Metallic Sulfide Mining District and Exxon's proposed Wolf River mine. The 1997 Circle Tour for a Sulfide Mining Moratorium started in Southeast Wisconsin and is now touring western Wisconsin. Upcoming stops include Humbird at the old community hall on King Street on 9/8; at the U.W. Stout Student Center's Great Hall in Menomonie on 9/9, and at the Plesant Ridge Waldorf School on 431 E. Court St. in Viroqua on 9/10. All events begin at 7:00pm. 

Despite growing public support for the bill and despite Rep. Marc Duff's public assurance at the May 12 hearing in Ladysmith that he would report the bill out of his committee so that it could come up for a vote in the Assembly, he has now reneged on that promise. Instead, Rep. Duff will be drafting a bill along the lines proposed by Governor Thompson in his budget address. It will require the mining companies to use available technologies to prevent pollution regardless of whether those technologies have been effective at preventing sulfide mine pollution. It is a do nothing bill that is simply a diversionary tactic. Please call your State Representative and ask them to support the Mining Moratorium Bill (Assembly Bill 70/ Senate Bill 3). The Legislative hotline is 1-800-362-9472. If you'd like Mining Moratorium Bill  postcards to distribute in your community, call (608) 784-4399 or drop me a note at 210 Avon St. #4, La Crosse, WI 54603.

The Forest County chapter of WRPC is proceeding with its lawsuit against the local agreeement with Exxon in the town of Nashville and can use your financial help as we ask you to renew your annual membership in WRPC.  Please use the enclosed envelope to mail in your WRPC membership renewal. Annual dues are $15 or $5 senior/low income. If you can contribute to the Forest County WRPC legal defense effort, please earmark your contribution "legal" on the memo line of your check. Please put your check in the mail today. We cannot match Exxon's money, but we can continue our efforts to build the broadest, multiracial grassroots movement against sulfide mining that the international mining industry has ever seen.

Sincerely,

Al Gedicks, Executive Secretary

April 28, 1997

Dear WRPC/WATER Network Member,

Despite a $1 million tv ad campaign and over $350,000 in lobbying expenses,  Exxon was unable to prevent Senate passage of the Mining Moratorium Bill by an overwhelming vote of 29-3 on March 11, 1997. Just before the Senate vote, Rodney Harrill, president of Crandon Mining, told a reporter,  "This is not just a ragtag group of individuals...Our opposition was way out ahead of us on this thing." ("Courting the lawmakers about Crandon," Wisconsin State Journal, 3/8/97). 

Last December, Exxon was gloating over the signing of a "local agreement", giving advance permission for the Crandon mine in the Town of Nashville despite overwhelming local opposition to such an agreement. Last April 1, Nashville voters turned the election into a referendum on the mine a and threw out 4 of the 5 town officials who signed the local agreement. Newly elected town chairman Chuck Sleeter said residents sent a clear message they don't want a mine in their community.  The Forest County chapter of WRPC still has a lawsuit pending in Oneida County Court challenging the legality of the local agreement. And in a move reminiscent of a Third World military dictatorship, the defeated town board and clerk have refused to leave office and have refused to turn over town files or keys to the town hall ("Ousted officials refuse to leave office," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 4/18/97). The battle to save the Wolf and Wisconsin Rivers has now become a battle to save democracy as well.

No matter where one chooses to look, Exxon is losing the battle for public support. The recent public opinion poll by the St. Norbert College Survey Center shows 48% opposing the project; 31% in favor; and 22% undecided ("Poll: Most seem to oppose mining," Wisconsin State Journal, 4/8/97). And the votes at the recent meetings of the Wisconsin Conservtion Congress were overwhelming (89-99%) in support for tighter regulation of mining and for protection of surface and ground waters. For the second time in recent years, American Rivers, a national conservation group, named the pristine Wolf River to the 10 most endangered rivers in North America because of the threat from Exxon's Wolf River mine. And beware of the DNR's study of pollution standards in the Wisconsin River where Exxon wants to dump its treated mine wastewater ("DNR says new study of river unrelated to mining company," Wisconsin State Journal, 4/17/97, enclosed).

The most urgent task now is to use this tremendous momentum to bombard the Assembly with support for passage of the Mining Moratorium Bill. The first hearing on the bill will be on Monday, May 12, 1997 at the Rusk County Community Library from 2:30 - 6:30pm in Ladysmith. If you're coming from the south on Hwy. 27, you cross the bridge and take the gravel road to the left to Falge Park (418 Corbett Avenue).Please use the enclosed fact sheet and draft newsletter article to get the word out on this bill. "Letters to the editor" of your local newspaper are extrememly important.  We've already overcome tremendous odds, let's not stop until the job is done.

Sincerely,   

Al Gedicks, Exec. Sec. WRPC