Sustainability There Are Several Issues With Respect

Sustainability

There are several issues with respect to the Kennecott Eagle Mine proposal. The first is the rights of the Ojibway people of the area. These rights have been granted to the people in law -- the Native Americans Freedom of Religion Act of 1979, and in a treaty made between the Ojibway and the federal government in the 1840s. So there is a legal issue at play, as well as a moral issue. There is the appearance that the state's elected officials are ignoring the native claims because they are "in bed" with in the mining company, which raises the specter of corruption.

A second issue with the Kennecott Eagle Mine, there is a key environmental issue. The land has been very useful and productive land with animals and plants. Thus, environmentalists, anglers and hunters alike are in opposition to the mine. The type of mining as well is a key issue, in that sulfide mining creates a lot of acid drainage that will adversely affect the water in the region. Watersheds will be polluted as the result of this type of mining, and have negative human impacts. There is a poor track record with this type of mining, with a high failure rate meaning that pollution from this mine is almost guaranteed.

A third issue surrounding this mine is that the company, Kennecott, tends to be a chronic polluter, releasing toxic materials into the environment. They tend to avoid much legal scrutiny despite this. The company has a culture and history that they do not care about the environment and willingly pollute it. The company has no accountability, and actively seeks to cover up its crimes. That the government has struggled to maintain objectivity calls into question corruption, for example using former Kennecott employees in doing environmental reviews. Such errors were not by accident.

As for agreement, the perspective here is rather biased, so it is hard to feel anything other than that the process has been corrupted and that the mine should not go ahead. So it's hard to really look at this objectively based on one-sided evidence, but the evidence does look pretty damning both for Kennecott and the MDEQ.

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The Mining Facts.org website describes some of the issues that go into environmentally sustainable mining, or at least improving the sustainability of the mine (you can't have true sustainable mining because eventually you run out of minerals). This website is a great backgrounder for understanding how the issue of sustainability is applied to the mining business. The Lundin site shows that the mine got approval in 2009 and has now been developed. Rio Tinto sold the mine to another company. What that means for the environment is unknown, but clearly the opposition to the mine didn't have enough politicians on the payroll.

The Save the Wild UP website indicates that some of the land has yet to be developed. There is a letter from a resident of the area asking that further permits for mining be denied. This website from an activist group outlines their activities and their objections to further mining. The ICMM is a self-regulating body for the industry, to try to clean up -- well at least clean up their public image.

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