From Save the Wild UP: The Facts in the Case: How Kennecott and the MDEQ are overriding Michigan’s mining laws

By Lillian Marks Heldreth

If anyone is wondering why people continue to protest Kennecott’s Eagle Mine Project, or why litigation is ongoing despite the fact that we are repeatedly told it’s a "done deal," the reason is simple: the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and Kennecott have together managed to circumvent and ignore Michigan’s mining and environmental protection laws as well as applicable federal statutes.

Both Kennecott and the state claim that we are protected by these laws, but because they have chosen not to obey them, the miners, the environment, and our citizens are without any protection whatsoever from what promises to be a disaster, the scope of which ranges from "very bad" to "the BP of the Great Lakes."

Because to our knowledge the full scope of these violations has never been published in one place in any of the public media, we consider it our civic duty to reveal them here, as clearly and as simply as we can. ... Read the rest of this article, posted Nov. 12, 2010, on savethewildup.org.