Wisconsin Resources Protection Council

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.

Tribal leaders, environmentalists and local officials have united to fight a massive mine which could be toxic to a water-rich area known as “Wisconsin’s Everglades.”

The highly unpopular iron mine giveaway bill is not only a major rollback of environmentally protective mining laws, it is also a well-funded mining industry assault on the grass-roots environmental, sport fishing and tribal movement that mobilized tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens to oppose Exxon’s destructive Crandon mine at the headwaters of the Wolf River and enact Wisconsin’s landmark “Prove It First” Mining Moratorium Law in 1998.

By Al Gedicks and Dave Blouin

Duluth News Tribune

How is it possible that the Wisconsin legislature is ready to pass legislation to create fast-tracked, less-protective ferrous (iron) mining laws for what promises be the largest open-pit iron mine in the world with no scientific evidence to justify treating iron mining differently than other metallic mining?

If Gogebic Taconite proceeds with a proposal, its first phase of mining alone would be larger than the acknowledged largest iron mine in the world, the Hull Rust Mahoning Mine in Hibbing. The taconite ore body in northern Wisconsin is known to run 22 miles, meaning the expansion of mining after phase one could result in an even larger mine with more potential to destroy rivers, streams, wetlands and groundwater.

The main proponents of an iron mining bill in Wisconsin — including Gogebic Taconite, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Mining Association — have misled legislators with claims that the iron ore in Ashland and Iron counties is more environmentally safe compared to metallic sulfide mining and thus requires separate regulations.

by Al Gedicks

Z Magazine, February 2013

Prior to investing in new resource colonies, multinational mining corporations frequently change a country’s mining laws to remove restrictions on foreign ownership, reduce taxes, ease environmental protections and guarantee access to water supplies needed for mining. During the 1990s, under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, over 90 states in the Global South changed their mining laws to attract foreign mining investment. These neocolonial measures, often called “neoliberal reforms,” are now being used to open up new mining projects in the Lake Superior region of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.

An unlikely coalition has lined up against mining companies and the Republicans who love them.

by David Giffey

FightingBob.com

Mark your calendar for noon Saturday, January 26. That’s the scheduled birth of a “new coalition” of Native American tribes, environmental and sport fishing groups, and friends, who will gather at the capitol in Madison in a statewide demonstration opposing another attempt to destroy Wisconsin’s prized moratorium on metallic sulfide mining. Your presence is welcome. No RSVP required.

The January 26 demonstration will be “a very powerful counterweight” to new legislation seen as paving a way to eventually destroy Wisconsin’s 1998 “prove it first” law, says Al Gedicks, of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council . Republican leaders including Governor Walker have said they’ll introduce The Bad River Watershed Destruction Act (that’s its popular title) this month. The bill is also called Gogebic Taconite’s (GTac) Strip Mine legislation.

Madison–The Sierra Club, Wisconsin Resources Protection Council and over 75 other organizations, including Trout Unlimited, the Wisconsin Association of Lakes, the Izaak Walton League of Wisconsin, the River Alliance of Wisconsin, the Penokee Hills Education Project, the Mining Impact Coalition of Wisconsin, Clean Wisconsin, the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters and many more statewide, regional and national groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council released an open letter urging Wisconsin legislators to reject changes to Wisconsin’s mining safeguards.

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.

December 8, 2012

Dear WRPC Member,

Governor Scott Walker recently told his supporters in the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) that his top legislative priority in the upcoming (January) session of the legislature is passage of the controversial Iron Mining Bill that was defeated by one vote in the Senate last spring. He claimed that if the bill were passed early in 2013, Gogebic Taconite (GTac) would “move forward with a mine which would put people to work right off the bat.”