200+ Demand: Repeal of Wisconsin’s Unjust Mining Law

By Barbara With
Posted Jan. 19, 2014, on Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative
Reprinted in part with permission

Chris Cline, owner of Gogebic Taconite (GTac), the company hoping to develop an open-pit iron mine in the Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin. Cline’s net worth as of 2012 was $1.5 billion. As it turns out, a member of the West Virginia legislature is vice president for business development for Natural Resource Partners (NRP), the company that Chris Cline owns a 31 percent interest in; and Russell Gordy, owner of RGGS minerals, the company that owns most of the mineral rights lease-optioned to GTAC in Iron County, is on the board of directors. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.)

Last week, 300,000 West Virginians lost their water. Hundreds of people went to emergency rooms, which also did not have water. A state of emergency has been declared. All because of "clean" coal.

The toxin responsible was methylcyclohexanol, used for washing coal and one of the chemicals that killed the Love Canal, site of the worst chemical disaster in U.S. history. West Virginia mining companies assured residents that their operations are safe and clean. The truth is just the opposite. "It’s caused us more problems than you could ever imagine," said Danny Jones, mayor of Charleston, the state’s capital. "It’s a prison from which we would like to be released."

West Virginia’s Chris Cline, King Coal himself, owns Gogebic Taconite (GTac), the mining company that wrote Wisconsin’s new mining law and wants to set up shop in northern Wisconsin. GTac has stated over and over that the new law protects the environment. Like the lies of King Coal, the lies of iron ore mining in Northern Wisconsin have come home to roost. ...

Click here to read the rest of this article, which includes names of concerned citizens calling for the REPEAL of Act 1, Wisconsin’s unjust ferrous mining law, and Act 118, the wetlands destruction law.