March 17, 2021
Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,
In a major victory for water protectors, a Michigan Administrative Law Judge has denied a disputed Wetlands Permit for Aquila Resources’ proposed Back Forty metallic sulfide mine in an exhaustive 76-page decision issued on January 4, 2021. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (now the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy or EGLE) provoked immediate controversy when it approved Aquila’s Wetlands Permit in 2018, over the objections of the agency’s own scientific staff who recommended to deny the permit.