Nickel mine permit appeal begins today

Opponents of a proposed Upper Peninsula nickel sulfide mine begin arguments today in an appeal of mining and water permits issued to Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co. by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Kennecott is a subsidiary of the global mining corporation, Rio Tinto. The proposed nickel sulfide mine is known as the Eagle Project. In December the DEQ approved permits for operations that would involve road construction, 120 acres of surface facilities, the excavation of ore from beneath the Salmon Trout River in northern Marquette County, and air and water emissions.

The DEQ permits are the first issued under the state’s 2005 non-ferrous (other than iron) metallic mining law.

The National Wildlife Federation, Huron Mountain Club, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve claim the state failed to follow standards and rules prescribed under the new law. They contend that if the mine is built and operated as proposed, engineering and scientific defects in the mine plan will result in discharges of contaminated water that will “significantly and permanently damage the groundwater, surface water, flora and fauna in and around the mine and will also threaten human health.”

Continued -The decision to fight the permit was strengthened, National Wildlife Federation attorney Michelle Halley said, when Kennecott’s parent company announced six additional sites of interest after receiving the DEQ permit for the Eagle Project.

According to Hal Fitch, director of the DEQ Office of Geological Survey, about 100 permits were granted for mining exploration in the Upper Peninsula last year. The federal government has also issued permits to mining companies — in March the National Forest Service approved permits for uranium exploration in the Ottawa National Forest.

In January DEQ spokesman Bob McCann told Michigan Messenger that he was confident that the agency was correct in issuing the permits.

“Our case is laid out in front of the public already,” McCann said. He encouraged interested parties to review information about the mine and permits at the DEQ web site.

He said he expected state and perhaps federal court appeals of whatever decision is reached by the state Office of Administrative Appeals.

Cynthia Pryor of Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve told Michigan Messenger she expects the arguments of the administrative appeal to last for two or three weeks, adding, “We have hundred of pages of comments on their technical data and we have issues with the methodology they used