Dear Editor,
I am writing in regards to the Aquila Back Forty Mine Project. On behalf of the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance (ISA) and our membership (the largest smallmouth bass community in the nation) We Are Opposed To The Back Forty Mine Project.
Dear Editor,
The number of abandoned mines in the United States is up to nearly 500,000. Over 30,000 have ruined the environment, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands more are discovered every year. Abandoned mines on federal land are mainly controlled by The Bureau of Land Management. President Trump is seeking to cut the clean-up funds from $35 million to $13 million.
April 29, 2019
Wisconsin Resources Protection Council
Box 263
Tomahawk, WI 54487
Mr. Oskar Lewnowski, CIO
Orion Mine Finance Group
7 Bryant Park
1045 Avenue of the Americas
Floor 25
New York, NY 10018
Dear Mr. Lewnowski
We are once again writing in regard to Orion’s 14 % ownership of Aquila Resources’ Back Forty metallic sulfide deposit in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Aquila’s President and CEO, Barry Hildred, has stated that Aquila has received all State and Federal permissions required for construction and commencement of operations at the Back Forty Project. This is inaccurate and highly misleading.
Dear Editor,
Aquila’s paid ad on April 27 in the EagleHerald boldly states that the public need not be concerned about water pollution from the Back Forty project because state and federal regulatory agencies have determined that the conditions in Aquila’s water discharge permit will protect groundwater and surface water.
This conclusion will undoubtedly come as a shock to the Water Resources Division (WRD) of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). In the WRD’s Finding of Fact and Conclusion of Law (April 30, 2018) they concluded that “the project does not demonstrate that the activities will be protective of water quality in perpetuity. The management and onsite disposal of waste material has not demonstrated that constituents from the material will be contained on the site, in the manner in which they are disposed.”
The WRD further determined, “that these materials will be transported through groundwater and discharge at the land and water interface, resulting in an adverse impact to the resource. With the data available to the WRD, this impact is foreseeable and will result in a long-term degradation of the aquatic resources on and off the project site.”
After reviewing Aquila’s wetland permit application the WRD concluded that a permit should not be issued. Despite the WRD’s extensive objections, the director of MDEQ issued Aquila’s wetland permit in June 2018. Despite repeated requests from the public and environmental groups, the MDEQ has not provided an explanation of why the agency ignored the scientific and legal objections of their own agency staff.
This obviously flawed permit process is now being challenged in a contested case hearing before an administrative law judge. The plaintiffs in the contested case include the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, the Coalition to SAVE the Menominee River Inc. and Tom Boerner, a private landowner.
Al Gedicks
Executive Secretary of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council, La Crosse, Wis.
Dear Editor,
How much can we take with industrial pollution destroying our water ways and the health of our people? Are they that selfish that all they care about is making themselves rich and not protecting the welfare of the people and the generations that will pay? They don’t care about the generations that will suffer from their negligence.
Are we only focused on ourselves now and not what happens years down the road? We need to step up to the plate and get our heads out of our keisters.
Aquila Resources, a Canadian Exploration company, says that everything is taken care of. Let me ask how can even one permit be issued when they don’t have a plan for a disaster. How would you stop a spill from going into the river? We the people have to say no to their contingency plan of disaster.
Aquila says they will monitor the mine after the closure if it goes through, but for how long? The duration of the earth with a hole 850-feet deep filled with toxins and acid mine drainage will never go away. It will be here for eternity.
How can we let this happen to the second biggest tributary to the Great Lakes? Aquila says it will be safe to the environment and the water when there has never been one open-pit metallic sulfide mine in that world that has not failed.
So why is the Menominee River rated one of 10 of the most endangered rivers in the U.S., according to a National Geographic in 2017.
Go back to Canada and put one up and prove yourself first.
Let’s step up and protect the generations to come and leave it better that we have now. So get your head out of your keister.
Jeffery J. Budish
Peshtigo
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.
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.”
by Al Gedicks
Wisconsin Resources Protection Council
agedicks@eagle.uwlax.edu
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.
