by Bryan Kelly
Listen to Al Gedicks’ interview, here: https://realresistanceradio.com/podcast/al-gedicks-uw-lacrosse-emeritus-professor-of-environmental-sociology/
Mining company’s proposed tailings dam could cause massive pollution of Lake Michigan.
by Al Gedicks
April 18, 2019
On January 25, 2019, a 28-story high tailings dam in Brumadinho, in southeastern Brazil failed, releasing almost 3 billion gallons of sludgy mine waste. The spill flooded nearby homes, submerging cars and buses under a river of reddish-brown sludge. The death toll so far has risen to 228 with an estimated 49 people still missing and presumed dead. This is Brazil’s deadliest-ever mining accident.
[L-R: Guy Reiter of the Menominee Indian Tribe, Jud Sojourn, Ph.D. of Center for Native American Studies at NMU. Kathleen Heideman of the U.P. Environmental Coalition, Al Gedicks of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council]
A local environmentalist group, The Interfaith Northern Great Lakes Water Stewards, is holding three public forums called “Clean Water, Wild Places” regarding the Back Forty project, a sulfide mining project in the Western Upper Peninsula.
April 3, 2019
Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,
Aquila’s full-page ad in the March 2, 2019 edition of the Eagle Herald sought to reassure the public about the safety of the Back Forty’s proposed tailings storage facility in light of the recent Brazilian tailings dam disaster that killed over 200 people with an estimated 91 others still missing and presumed buried under mud. This is Brazil’s deadliest-ever mining accident. A steady stream of letters to the editor of the Eagle Herald have expressed serious public concerns about the safety of Aquila’s tailings dam design.
by Al Gedicks
Wisconsin Resources Protection Council
Aquila’s Communications Manager Dan Blondeau has claimed that the tailings management facility at the Back Forty is not a traditional upstream raised tailings dam design and that it is “significantly different” from the failed Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil. Blondeau says that “Our facility was designed to mitigate the known risks of common upstream raised tailings facilities.”
Feb
19
2019
by Al Gedicks
Wisconsin Resources Protection Council
agedicks@eagle.uwlax.edu
Aquila’s “Upstream” dam construction method poses unacceptable risks to downstream communities and the Menominee River
The proposed Back Forty tailings waste storage uses the upstream dam construction method.
by Al Gedicks
Wisconsin Resources Protection Council
agedicks@eagle.uwlax.edu
Tailings Dams Are the Biggest Environmental Disaster Threat of Modern Mining
My main concern with the amended permit application is with the expansion of the Tailings Management Facility which largely accounts for the mine’s footprint expanding by some 200 acres.
by Al Gedicks
February 8, 2019
The recent collapse of a mine tailings dam in southeastern Brazil has already resulted in 134 fatalities, leaving an estimated 300 people still missing, according to rescue workers.
The spill flooded nearby homes, submerging cars and buses under a river of reddish-brown sludge. This environmental disaster should raise red flags for Michigan regulators and the communities downstream from Aquila Resources’ proposed open-pit metallic sulfide mine and tailings dam next to the Menominee River on the Wisconsin-Michigan border.
