Wisconsin Resources Protection Council

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.

WRPC note:  The public hearings listed on the WRPC Website for June 23, in Rhinelander and Lynne, have been cancelled.

by Marcus Nesemann, Rhinelander Daily News, June 14, 2012

The Oneida County Forestry, Land and Recreation Committee will forward two resolutions to the county board seeking permission to advertise for bids for mining proposals and to hold a referendum in November to gauge public interest in moving forward with mining in the town of Lynne.

The bids would be for “exploration, prospecting, and mining lease agreements.” The committee, according to the resolution, “feels that it is necessary for the lease agreements (to) be put out for bid in order to garner valuable information from the mining companies, which will in turn lead to a better assesment of public reaction at the time of the informational meetings that the committee is required to conduct pursuant to county policy.”

Those meetings, not to be confused with now-canceled public-information meetings, are required by the Oneida County Metallic Ore Prospecting and Mining Policy, which calls for them to be held “prior to entering into any mining agreements to asses public reaction.”