Wisconsin Tribes set to meet with EPA regarding proposed Penokee mine

By Barbara With
Posted July 21, 2014, on Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative 
Reprinted in part with permission

Flags representing the tribe of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa taken at the Penokee Hills Education Summit in September 2013. (Photo © and courtesy Rebecca Kemble)

NORTHERN WISCONSIN -- On August 21, 2014, the six tribes of Wisconsin’s Chippewa Federation will meet with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials to urge them to stop mining activity in the Penokee Hills in northern Wisconsin. Tribal leaders sent a letter in May requesting the meeting and asking the EPA to invoke a section of the Clean Water Act in order to prevent the devastation of a proposed 22-mile open-pit mountaintop removal iron ore mine from destroying the Bad River watershed:

"CWA§404(c) authorizes the EPA to restrict, prohibit, deny, or withdraw the use of an area for the disposal of dredged or fill material, including mining wastes, when it is determined that discharge will have unacceptable adverse effects on fisheries, wildlife, shellfish beds, municipal water supplies, or recreational areas."

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Click here to read the May 27, 2014, letter from Wisconsin tribal leaders to the EPA concerning the Clean Water Act and the proposed Penokee mine. The letter is from six bands of the Anishinaabeg Territory Watersheds and Waters of Lake Superior: Bad River Band of Lake Superior, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior, Lac du Flambeau Band, St. Croix Band, Sokoagon Band, and Lac Courte Oreilles Band.

Visit United in Defense of the Water to learn how you can take action by writing a letter of support to EPA.