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.
May 2, 2013
Dear WRPC Member,
Gogebic Taconite and their supporters in the legislature succeeded in passing the Bad River Watershed Destruction Act but they are losing the battle for public acceptance of mountaintop removal mining in the Penokee Hills. The financial interests behind the legislation, including the Cline Group and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, contributed $15.6 million to the Republican-controlled legislature and GOP Governor Scott Walker between 2010 and June 2012, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. They also found that mining deregulation interests outspent opponents of mining deregulation by 610 to 1.
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
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
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:
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.
For Immediate Release, July 25, 2012
MADISON, Wis.— A federal court ruled yesterday that the Flambeau Mining Company violated the Clean Water Act on multiple occasions by allowing pollution from its Flambeau Mine site, near Ladysmith, Wis., to enter the Flambeau River and a nearby tributary. Eleven of these occasions occurred within the applicable statute of limitations, resulting in liability for 11 violations of the Act.
January 11, 2012
Dear WRPC Member,
Despite efforts to discourage people from northern Wisconsin from attending a public hearing on the Iron Mining bill (AB 426) by holding the hearing in Milwaukee, many northern residents got in their cars or caught a bus at 5am to make the long trip to testify at the hearing. Opponents of this wholesale gutting of Wisconsin’s mining regulatory framework outnumbered supporters 2 to 1!
