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Sulfide
mining news... A Divided Community
Last week, the Brookings Institute, a respected Washington think tank,
released a new report that stated that a healthier Great Lakes environment
would translate into a $50 billion benefit for the region. Michigan,
virtually surrounded by the Great Lakes, would stand to benefit the
most.
“This new report confirms in dollars and cents that the health
of the Great Lakes economy depends on the health of the Great Lakes,”
said Robert Litan, a senior fellow at the institute.
The report also stated that a healthy Great Lakes ecosystem would, “help
the region transform economically and act as a magnet in attracting
and retaining a talented work force.” This is timely news as our
community and our state grapple with the decision whether to allow a
sulfide-based nickel and copper mine in one of our most sensitive and
unique watersheds. But it’s not news, really. It’s a reminder
from outside experts. Hopefully, someone in Lansing will take notice.
Another report that should be considered is the Lake Superior Lakewide
Management Plan or LaMP. This international document was developed by
the federal governments of the United States and Canada, the Province
of Ontario and the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Known
as the Binational Program to Restore and Protect Lake Superior, these
governments agreed that Lake Superior should be “a demonstration
area for the Great Lakes and the world. Where no point source discharge
of any persistent toxic substance will be permitted.”
The LaMP also includes numerous recommendations regarding water quality,
critical pollutants, airborne deposition and human health. There are
specific recommendations about protecting important habitats, including
habitat for the coaster brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) population
in the Salmon Trout River. The entire plan is predicated on the principles
of sustainability and transitioning communities from resource-extraction
economies to sustainable economies. Hopefully, someone in Lansing will
remember that Michigan helped develop these recommendations.
A third study that should be considered is America’s Most Endangered
Rivers report published by American Rivers in Washington D.C. This national
report ranked the Salmon Trout River as one of the ten most endangered
rivers in the United States, chosen out of the more than 350,000 rivers
in our country. It also is worth noting that the Superior Watershed
Partnership provided the data and documentation that resulted in this
rather ignominious, but important, nomination. Hopefully someone in
Lansing will heed this dire warning.
Fourth, the John Voelker Foundation recently passed a unanimous resolution
“opposing sulfide mining in any Upper Peninsula watershed.”
This prestigious institution furthers the vision of one of Michigan’s
most prominent authors, judges and attorneys. Hopefully, someone in
Lansing will respect his legacy.
Lastly, there is the locally produced Salmon Trout River Watershed Management
Plan developed by the Superior Watershed Partnership. This comprehensive
200-page plan was developed with a grant from the Michigan Department
of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).
Actually, the funding goes like this; Congress allocates funding through
the Clean Water Act, the funds are then given to the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), which then gives some funding to MDEQ and they award grants
at the local level to develop watershed management plans. One of the
goals of this national program is to get local, multi-stakeholder involvement
in protecting and restoring local water quality. The planning process
involves an extensive field inventory and monitoring program. In short,
the plan documents “existing and potential” water quality
impacts and then provides science-based recommendations. Perhaps the
most important recommendation in the Salmon Trout Plan is to “prohibit
all sulfide-based mining.”
The SWP has a vested interest in protecting the Salmon Trout because
over the last decade we have completed over a dozen field projects to
protect water quality and help restore important habitats. Hopefully,
someone in Lansing will respect the recommendations of this locally-driven,
federally-funded process.
We offer this information with all due respect to the many hard-working,
well-intentioned government employees, but we also recognize that large
bureaucracies are capable of oversights, including the recommendations
of their own highly qualified staff. At a time when our country seems
to doubt the reality of a truly democratic process, we hope that it
still holds true in Michigan. If the mine were put to a vote, the recent
public hearings are a testament to the fact that it would be overwhelmingly
defeated.
Since this mine was first proposed, it has created divisiveness and
discord in our proud community. At the risk of oversimplifying, people
generally can be lumped into two camps; the economics camp and the environment
camp (sadly, even these groups now have their own factions, infighting
and camps-within-camps). Some have observed that strikingly similar
scenarios are occurring in many third world countries around the globe.
Certainly, we have not stooped that far.
Perhaps, the Brookings report will help some to understand that a healthy,
intact ecosystem is essential for a healthy, sustainable economy. But
transitioning to a sustainable economy takes patience. No one gets rich
overnight. However, the eventual payoff is well worth the wait.
—Carl Lindquist
Biblical scholar to speak about environment
Noted biblical scholar and author Walter Brueggemann will hold free
public talks in the Marquette area during early October on the “connection
of Bible and environmental crisis,” including Upper Peninsula issues
like a proposed sulfide mine.
“My presentation will consider the way in which the Bible empowers
and calls us to care about our environment,” Brueggemann said.
“The connection of Bible and environmental crisis is an invitation
to a new, responsible sanity—after too much economic insanity.”
Brueggemann will speak and lead workshops in the Marquette area on October
8 and 9. He will touch on Upper Peninsula environmental issues.
“Among those issues are mining that wrecks the land, deforestation
and all the temptations to exploit our God-given resources,” Brueggemann
said. “My work will be to show the biblical texts that matter—those
texts draw very close to immediate issues of abuse.”
Rev. Warren Geier, pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, said
Brueggemann has the unique ability to speak to general audiences and
to bring out the truth of Biblical texts as they relate to our contemporary
religious, cultural, political and economic situation.
“Using the Bible, he will challenge the assumptions and certainties
of both conservatives and liberals—issues like sulfide mining are
not just about economics versus care of the environment,” Geier
said. “For people of faith, there is a theological component to
environmental issues and Dr. Brueggemann will help all of us to understand
it.”
Brueggemann will hold a free public lecture at 7:00 p.m. on October
8 at the University Center at Northern Michigan University on “Theology
of Creation and the Environmental Crisis.”
A preaching workshop for clergy and lay church workers will be held
from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on October 9 at Messiah Lutheran Church
in Marquette. The cost is $20, with lunch included, and a reservation
is required. The discussion will focus on “Biblical Preaching in
the Shadow of the Empire.”
Brueggemann will hold a free public talk at 7:00 p.m. on October 9 at
Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming entitled “Journey to the Common
Good: Reading the Bible Towards God’s Future,” which will
address issues concerning how we interpret scripture.
The events are cosponsored by Lutheran Campus Ministry and the departments
of philosophy and English at NMU, the Northern Great Lakes Synod of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Bethany Lutheran Church
in Ishpeming.
A world-renowned Old Testament scholar and author, Brueggemann connects
Old Testament scholarship to contemporary issues. He has authored more
than fifty-eight books, hundreds of articles and several commentaries
on books of the Bible.
“Walter Brueggemann is recognized as one of the most prominent
Old Testament scholars of our time,” Geier said. “He sees
the Bible as a work of poetic imagination, which offers an alternative
to what have become the accepted ways of our world.”
Brueggemann participated in Bill Moyers acclaimed PBS television series
on the Book of Genesis. A graduate of Elmhurst College, Brueggemann
studied at Eden Theological Seminary, receiving his doctorate of divinity
from Union Theological Seminary, New York, and a Ph.D from Saint Louis
University.
Brueggemann was professor of Old Testament at Eden before joining the
faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary in 1986. He currently is William
Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia.
For more information or to register for the workshop, e-mail Pastor
Warren Geier at Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming at revwgeier@charterinternet.com
or call 486-4351.
—Greg Peterson
Physicians pass resolution opposing sulfide mine
Area physicians concerned about the public health implications of a
proposed sulfide mine voted overwhelmingly last week to pass a resolution
opposing the project.
At a quarterly medical staff meeting, 117 physicians cast their vote
in favor of the resolution, which expressed their wish to “urge
the Michigan DEQ to deny the permits (air, water, mining, and state
land use) for the Kennecott sulfide mine proposed in Marquette County.”
Scott Emerson, MD, was in attendance at the meeting and said the mood
was one of euphoria because the physicians were grateful for an opportunity
to discuss the project and their concerns.
“Would you allow a surgeon that had a history of complications
to work on your mother? That’s really what we’re talking about
with this mine, isn’t it?” Emerson said. “The best predictor
of future behavior is past behavior, and physicians understand that.”
Emerson, an emergency physician, said the health of the community was
one of the major driving forces behind the vote.
“It’s a health issue and, as physicians, we are concerned
about preventative medicine,” he said. “That means we are
concerned about our air and water, too. Many physicians have been told
by patients how concerned they are and how they really want the medical
community to stand up for their health concerns.”
Prior to the vote, physicians discussed a number of concerns in addition
to the health implications, including inadequate hydrology studies,
potential for Lake Superior contamination, air exhaust carrying particulate
dust, and general errors and assumptions that do not meet state environmental
statutes.
In addition, Emerson said there is general concern about what he called
a “threshold phenomenon.”
“You’re opening the gates,” he said. “This isn’t
about approving one mine, but opening the gates to twenty, thirty or
more. That’s what physicians are also worried about. Is that part
of the DEQ calculation? We don’t think so.”
The resolution was read in Lansing at the final public hearing on the
proposed sulfide mine.
—Angela Nebel
Notes
from the North Country, by Lon & Lynn Emerick
It was time to plant the final flag. Reverently, with joy and hopefulness,
we place the small green banner with large white letters proclaiming
“Save the U.P.” near the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula.
The pennants were already waving at the other three corners of the Upper
Peninsula—near Ironwood, Detour and Brimley. We had tramped in
nature preserves, along Lake Superior beaches, by small lakes and under
rugged cliffs. The Four Corners Mission was accomplished.
Symbolically, we are “claiming” the territory above the Big
Mac Bridge for all the residents who love this rugged land and the lifestyle
that is our privilege to enjoy. It also is an effort—quixotic,
perhaps—to call out danger, to signal a warning about the epidemic
of “development” that is sweeping inexorably across this Superior
Peninsula.
Images of “Up North” lure people—especially those jaded
with urban living—to the U.P. Those who come with an appreciation
of the land and its people have contributed much to their new communities.
Some newcomers, though, come with an idealistic view of this region,
bringing expectations of transplanting an urban lifestyle into a remote
and rugged place. There is a tendency to set out making this new place
more like the places they have fled. In his book Great Lakes Journey,
William Ashworth delineated the Fallacy of Composition: “Things
you want add up to things you don’t want.”
We are wary, too, when others come here who see only dollars in our
natural heritage. One local land developer is marketing the U.P. to
out-of-area buyers with the slogan, “Escape while you can!”
We remember that the human history of our peninsula has been one of
boom and bust: resources are harvested as quickly as possible, with
most profits siphoned off and sent away to other states and countries.
And we are left with empty promises and unsightly—or dangerous—residue.
Living long in a place, one is bound to see changes in the land and
destruction of favorite natural areas. Many of us who dwell in the Upper
Peninsula cannot live happily without opportunities to savor beauty,
the rapture of silence and vast wild spaces. We echo Thoreau’s
lament penned a century and a half ago: “I am attempting to read
the ‘Book of Nature’ all the while others are rapidly tearing
out the pages.”
What we have here in this peninsula is vulnerable to each new proposal
to convert the land and its resources into corporate profit. We must
be careful not to allow destruction of the very reasons we wish to live
here.
Every day, long-time lovers of this Superior Peninsula offer thanks—each
in his or her own way—that we are fortunate to live in this wild
and beautiful land. With the flags planted on the four corners of the
U.P., we make a small statement of affection and concern for our native
valley.
If, by chance, you discover one of the small banners, please leave it
in place and let us know, if you will, the date and place of your discovery.
—Lynn and Lon Emerick
Editor’s Note: Comments are welcome by writing MM or to marquettemonthly@
chartermi.net
Lon and Lynn Emerick’s Upper Peninsula books: The Superior Peninsula,
Going Back to Central, Lumberjack—Inside an Era, Sharing the Journey,
You Wouldn’t Like it Here and You STILL Wouldn’t Like it Here
are available at area book and gift stores or by visiting the North
Country Publishing site at www.northcountrypublishing.com
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