Stupak warns of environmental risks with Kennecott mine

Rio Tinto, the global mining company whose subsidiary, Kennecott, is building a nickel sulfide mine west of Marquette, has earned a reputation for a willingness to cut corners on safety and environmental safeguards, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) warned in an op-ed distributed across northern Michigan over the weekend.

Stupak, who chairs of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said that he is concerned that the $17 million assurance bond put up by Kennecott would not be enough to cover the persistent contamination that the company could cause.

He also warned that the state of Michigan is not in a position to provide adequate regulation of the proposed sulfide mine.

Unfortunately Michigan’s mining laws fall short of holding Kennecott accountable. State permits were approved without requiring an Environmental Impact Statement and without independent baseline hydrological and geological studies. Because there is no evidence of the environment’s condition before Kennecott starts mining, there is no way to prove what damage they cause.

We should heed the lessons we have learned from the Gulf spill. Weak state regulations in place for sulfide mining are worthless without proper enforcement. Given Michigan’s continuing budget problems, it seems unlikely the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment will have adequate resources to ensure Kennecott is complying with safety and environmental standards. Kennecott should be responsible for providing the state with the funding needed for these inspectors.

In March Kennecott withdrew its application for a federal waste water permit, stating that a design change had rendered the permit unnecessary. Stupak said that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will announce by the end of the month whether federal permits are necessary for the mine to move forward.

Stupak, who is involved in investigating the BP’s Gulf oil spill, warned that there has not been adequate planning for how to protect Michigan’s water from mine related contamination.

Oil companies have been engaged in deepwater drilling for 30 years, yet they have been completely unprepared to handle a worst-case scenario. Sulfide mining has never been done — much less done safely — in our region. I have little confidence that the proper precautions and contingency plans are in place to prevent contamination of our streams, rivers and the Great Lakes. The financial protections put in place for taxpayers are symbolic at best. As we have seen in the Gulf spill, if we wait until a problem occurs to find a solution it is already too late.