Wisconsin Resources Protection Council

What happens when a mine closes? A former Wisconsin mine has bloomed into a natural gem, but some see trouble below the surface

by Laura Schulte

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

July 31, 2025

If you would like to view a pdf version of this story, click here:  Flambeau Mine Pollution – MJS

LADYSMITH – At first glance, the Flambeau Mine Reclamation area is a paradise.

Tall grasses wave in the wind. Moths and other insects float among the flowers, and walking paths meander through, giving walkers a view of the rolling grounds that were once ripped open for an open pit mine.

It’s quiet, though you can hear the buzz of vehicles in the distance. In one area of the park, there’s a path for equestrians to use. Walking groups meander along the trails.

June 4, 2014

Dear WRPC Member,

Ever since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7^th Circuit in Chicago found a creative way to let Flambeau Mining Company (FMC) “off the hook” for violations of the Clean Water Act that had been assessed against the company by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (for ongoing pollution of public waters at the Flambeau Mine site near Ladysmith, Wisconsin), FMC attorneys have been coming after the three plaintiffs in the case, including WRPC, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Laura Gauger.

December 12, 2013

Dear WRPC Member,

Kennecott/Rio Tinto’s Flambeau Mining Company (FMC) appealed its conviction for violating the Clean Water Act at its partially reclaimed Flambeau mine to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7^th Circuit in Chicago.

Flambeau Mining is let off the hook for pollution

In October 2013 the Appeals Court let FMC off the hook by ruling that the mining permit issued to FMC by the State of Wisconsin “shielded” the company from prosecution

by Dave Blouin and Al Gedicks

In their May 7 opinion piece “Unlock minerals in Wisconsin,” representatives of the Wisconsin and National Mining Associations grossly misrepresent the facts to sway the public in favor of mining law reforms for gold and base metals. Their rhetoric is designed to hide the fact that their No. 1 goal is to repeal Wisconsin’s landmark “prove it first” Mining Moratorium Law.

January 9, 2013

Dear WRPC Member,

Wisconsin is now under a well-funded mining industry attack on the grassroots environmental, sportfishing, and tribal movement which mobilized tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens to successfully oppose Exxon’s destructive Crandon mine at the headwaters of the Wolf River and enact Wisconsin’s landmark Mining Moratorium Law.

Assembly Republican leaders say the first bill they’ll introduce in early January is the Bad River Watershed Destruction Act, also known as Gogebic Taconite’s Strip Mine Legislation

By Al Gedicks and Dave Blouin

January 4, 2013

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the mining industry have begun a major lobbying effort to overturn Wisconsin’s landmark Mining Moratorium Law. The law, also known as Wisconsin’s “Prove it First” law, was developed to address the problem of acid mine drainage from metallic sulfide mining.

by Joe Tarr

Isthmus/Daily Page

When the idea for a moratorium on mining projects in Wisconsin was floated in the early 1990s, few people gave it much chance of succeeding.

The speaker of the state Assembly, Scott Jensen, vowed the bill would never pass. Gov. Tommy Thompson pledged to veto it.

But what happened next is something that Spencer Black, who was then a Democratic assemblyman, lectures about in his natural resources class at the UW-Madison. Environmentalists, Native Americans, sports enthusiasts, college students and others all came together to support the bill, pressuring legislators in every district.

“It was the strongest grassroots effort I’d seen in Wisconsin,” Black remembers. “Exxon spent more money lobbying against the moratorium than had ever been spent lobbying against a bill. Exxon spent millions of millions to lobby against it. But there was this tremendous support for it.”

Mining industry lobbyists are urging the Legislature to repeal Wisconsin’s landmark mining moratorium, or “prove it first” law, by pointing to the “success” of the partially-reclaimed Flambeau metallic sulfide mine in Ladysmith.

There is no scientific evidence to support such claims.

WRPC has submitted information on the Flambeau Mine to Senator Cullen’s Select Committee on Mining.  Click the pdf link below to access it:

Evidence on the Flambeau Mine.pdf

August 16, 2012

Dear WRPC Member,

On July 24, 2012 a federal court ruled that the Flambeau Mining Company, a subsidiary of Kennecott/Rio Tinto, violated the Clean Water Act on multiple occasions by allowing pollution from its Flambeau Mine site, near Ladysmith, to enter the Flambeau River and a nearby tributary.

The lawsuit against Flambeau Mining Company (FMC) was filed last year by the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and Laura Gauger.  Monitoring data from the mining company and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources showed that copper levels in the discharges from a detention basin exceeded Wisconsin’s acute toxicity criterion set to protect fish and other aquatic species, sometimes by several times.