Wisconsin Resources Protection Council

February 22, 2023

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

When the Gold Resource Corporation (GORO) acquired the bankrupt Back Forty Project from Aquila Resources, they told their shareholders that “We fully anticipate that this project is going to be relatively easy to permit.” Allen Palmiere, GORO ‘s CEO also said “We intend to place the Back Forty Project into production on an accelerated basis, funded by cash flow generation.” That was in September 2021. In February 2023 GORO has yet to complete an economic feasibility study, a necessary step prior to submitting all five mine permit applications to Michigan’s Dept. of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

October 12, 2022

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

On September 23 the Michigan Historic Preservation Review Board voted unanimously to support the nomination of Anaem Omot (The Dog’s Belly), the Menominee Tribe’s cultural sites to the National Register of Historic Places. The nominated area is 50 miles upstream from the mouth of the Menominee River and includes the site of the proposed Back Forty mine. The location contains burial grounds, raised agricultural fields and ancient dance rings of cultural significance to the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. The Menominee people occupied the Menominee River area for millennia, until an 1836 Treaty with the U.S. forced them to cede their original territory in Michigan.

June 14, 2022

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

In July 2009 Aquila Resources President and CEO Tom Quigley told the Lake Township Board, in Menominee County, Michigan that the company expects to receive mining permits for the controversial Back Forty metallic sulfide mine next to the Menominee River in 2010 and begin production as early as 2012. Ten years later Aquila Resources is bankrupt and the mining permits have either been overturned or withdrawn thanks to the combined public education and legal challenges by the Coalition to SAVE the Menominee River and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.

February 16, 2022

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council in Medford, Wisconsin in 1982. The major concern of WPRC was the lack of information about the effects of large-scale metallic sulfide mining on our state’s precious water supplies, on the tourism and dairy industries, and upon the many Native American communities that are located near potential mine sites.

October 6, 2021

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

After 18 years and an investment of over $100 million there is no mine next to the Menominee River and significant, ongoing resistance to any mining in the future. The permits Aquila Resources needs to begin mining have either been overturned, withdrawn, or rendered obsolete because the mine plans have changed to include underground as well as open pit mining.

June 10, 2021

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

Ever since Aquila’s Wetlands Permit was overturned in a contested case last January, the company has been in a downward spiral that has drained its finances and called into question the future of the Back Forty mining project. Aquila’s recent announcement that they are planning to sell their interests in the Reef deposit in Marathon County and the Bend deposit in Taylor County (https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2021/06/01/aquila-sell-wisconsin-mineral-interests-focus-back-forty-mine/5289825001/) is only a symptom of a much larger set of problems.

March 17, 2021

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

In a major victory for water protectors, a Michigan Administrative Law Judge has denied a disputed Wetlands Permit for Aquila Resources’ proposed Back Forty metallic sulfide mine in an exhaustive 76-page decision issued on January 4, 2021. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (now the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy or EGLE) provoked immediate controversy when it approved Aquila’s Wetlands Permit in 2018, over the objections of the agency’s own scientific staff who recommended to deny the permit.

December 10, 2020

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

Aquila Resources has submitted its Dam Safety Permit application to Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE). However, the company has not yet submitted an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) in the event of a dam failure and the release of toxic mine waste into the Menominee River. In the absence of an EAP, the application is incomplete. This may explain why EGLE has not announced a timetable for a public hearing on the permit and a deadline for the submission of written comments.

August 20, 2020

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

Aquila Resources continues to provide misleading and inaccurate information about the status of the Back Forty project in its most recent financial report. The company’s June 2020 report states, “The Company has received the four primary permits required to commence construction and operations at Back Forty.”

Aquila has no Back Forty Dam Permit

However, the company has not yet submitted a revised Dam Safety Permit application since Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) rejected Aquila’s original application as incomplete and requested additional information. According to EGLE, “Aquila is not authorized to begin construction of the mine and will not be able to proceed until all permits, including the Dam Safety Permit have been approved by EGLE.”

January 9, 2020

Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,

January 25 marks the one-year anniversary of the Brazilian mine tailings dam rupture that released almost 3 billion gallons of toxic mine waste and killed 270 people in Brazil’s deadliest-ever mining accident. After the catastrophic failure, Brazil not only banned the upstream design at issue in the disaster for future mines, but mandated that every existing mine tailings dam of that design be decommissioned. As I’ve written in an extensive background report, why would Wisconsin and Michigan residents put up with what Brazil will not? The report is online at UrbanMilwaukee.com