April 2025 Newsletter
April 23, 2025
Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,
The Gold Resource Corporation’s (GORO) Back Forty Project continues to be on indefinite hold. GORO lost $56.5 million in 2024, while cash reserves dropped from $6.3 million in 2023 to $1.6 million as of December 31, 2024, according to CEO Allen Palmiere.
GORO’S “perfect storm” of financial woes
GORO’s poor performance was due to what Palmiere recently (4/9/25) described to shareholders as a “perfect storm” due to declining ore grades and the mining equipment fleet wearing out at the company’s only operating mine in Mexico. “Despite production improving in the fourth quarter, the Company’s inability to achieve its production estimates and lack of adequate liquidity has created substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”
As Mark Doremus has noted in his 906 Report (back40film.com), “Financial commitments related to the Back Forty mine were a drag on GORO’s 2024 financial performance.” GORO spent $400,000 to “maintain the Back Forty Project in 2024.” Meanwhile, costs are rising and the local opposition to the Back Forty is prepared to challenge any attempt to apply for the multiple permits required before any mine construction can begin.
Green Light Metals (GLM) gets approval for exploratory drilling of the Bend deposit in Wisconsin
GLM has received state and federal approvals for exploratory drilling of the Bend copper and gold deposit on U.S. Forest Service land northwest of Medford in Taylor County. The company plans to drill 8 holes right in the middle of flooded wetlands near the North Fork of the Yellow River ( Brian Allnutt, “Wetlands rules face rollback under Trump: Great Lakes pollution next,” Planet Detroit, April 14, 2025). The Yellow River empties into Lake Wissota, a man-made lake, and the Chippewa River.
The drillholes are up to 1,350 feet deep in a wetland area surrounded by standing water peat bogs and flowing rivers. Citizen critics tried to get the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to enforce State Code requirements for drilling and filling exploration drillholes. The DNR failed to require GLM to consider the impacts to groundwater from disposing of acidic waste below the groundwater level in sump pits dug 10-feet deep into the forest floor at each drill site.
In March 2025, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed petitions for a contested case hearing and judicial review, challenging the construction site storm water permit issued to GLM for drilling (Danielle Kaeding, “Mining company approved to drill for copper, gold in northern Wisconsin,” Wisconsin Public Radio, April 9, 2025). The Ho-Chunk Nation has also passed a resolution opposing the exploratory drilling permit and any future efforts to mine the Bend deposit.
Stay tuned,
Al Gedicks, Executive Secretary
