Questions on Eagle East: DEQ to hold public meeting June 8

From: Mining Action Group*

This aerial photograph shows (1) Eagle Mine facility and active drill rigs in the (2) southern drilling area for Eagle East, (3) northern drilling area for Eagle East and (4) eastern drilling area for Eagle East. The general location of the Eagle East ore body, some 3000 feet below the surface, is outlined by the large circle. Click on photo for larger version. (May 2017 photograph © Jeremiah Eagle Eye)

MARQUETTE -- The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is holding a public meeting on the permit amendment request to expand Eagle Mine's operations to include Eagle East -- and eight kilometers of tunnels to connect these ore bodies. The public meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 8, 2017, at the Westwood High School, 300 Westwood Dr, Ishpeming.**

While the proposed permit "amendment" is described as a "significant change" to the Eagle Mine permit, Eagle East is actually a new ore body, located beyond the previously permitted boundary of Eagle Mine. More mining spells serious trouble for the environment, with a widening industrial footprint and impacts never considered under the original permit. More mining means more tailings, more dewatering, and an increased risk of water contamination.

QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT EAGLE EAST

1. Lundin Mining claims that the Eagle East deposit will extend the life of Eagle Mine by only one or two years. What the mine doesn’t mention is that this modest extension to life of the mine comes at a cost: increased truck traffic, increased air emissions, more toxic mining waste permanently stored in a pit lake at Humboldt Mill, and increased discharge of pollutants to the Middle Branch of the Escanaba River. Is Eagle East worth the enormous environmental footprint?

2. Lundin describes the combined ore as "Eagle ore" but Eagle and Eagle East are two different ore bodies, born from different volcanogenic events and sources. The new Eagle East ore body contains higher grades of copper and nickel, as well as other toxic heavy metals.

3. How will this new ore body impact water quality? The Eagle East ore body is located three thousand feet below the surface, so the ore and waste rock contain high quantities of entrapped salts from ancient brines, laced with heavy metals. This will, in turn, create long-term problems for the Humboldt Pit, where the addition of huge amounts of Eagle East waste tailings will dramatically increase Total Dissolved Solids. At the present Eagle Mine, the wastewater treatment plant will also need a new crystallizer to handle the salts and metals.

4. Last year’s undisclosed "partial pillar collapse" at Eagle Mine draws the overall safety of the expansion into question.*** Has the underlying geology been thoroughly studied? Can we trust Lundin to tell us when our watersheds and their employees are in danger? Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that a Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration investigation found that a significant "large block failure" resulted from an undetected rock fracture. Mining experts have repeatedly warned that the Eagle ore body is filled with hard-to-map "smaller-scale discontinuities that could weaken the rock mass." Was the data correctly interpreted? Has the stability of Eagle Mine been dangerously overestimated from the beginning? Concerns about last year’s rock failure at Eagle Mine must be addressed before the company’s mining permit is amended.

Written public comment on the proposed permit amendment will be accepted until 5 p.m. on July 6, 2017. Send all comments to DEQ-Mining-Comments@michigan.gov, including "Eagle East Permit Amendment" as the subject, or mail them to:

DEQ Eagle East Permit Amendment
Office of Oil, Gas, and Minerals
1504 West Washington Street
Marquette, MI 49855

Editor's Notes:

* The Mining Action Group (MAG), formerly Save the Wild U.P., is a volunteer grassroots effort defending the clean water and wild places of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from the dangers of sulfide mining. MAG is a new semi-autonomous arm of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition (UPEC).

** See Keweenaw Now's May 30, 2017, announcement of the public meeting: "MDEQ to hold public meeting on Eagle East Mining Permit Application Amendment June 8; public comments accepted until July 6."

*** See the Mining Action Group's May 25, 2017, article, "Eagle Mine Buries Underground Collapse," citing details of a 2016 underground collapse incident at Eagle Mine and grave concerns with the company’s lack of transparency. 

Michigan DNR: Revised Public Notice on Eagle Mine metallic mineral lease application

LANSING -- The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) released today, Oct. 31, 2014, a corrected Public Notice concerning a recent application for a metallic mineral lease by Eagle Mine. The Public Notice published in local media on Oct. 20, 2014, failed to include the lease classification: "development with restrictions." Here is the text of the corrected Public Notice:

CORRECTION
STATE OF MICHIGAN
NOTICE OF DIRECT METALLIC MINERAL LEASE REQUEST
MARQUETTE COUNTY
METALLIC MINERAL LEASE APPLICATION 2014-8

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has received a request from Eagle Mine LLC, of Champion, Michigan, to direct lease 40.00 acres, more or less, of state-owned metallic mineral rights described as follows:

NE1/4 SE1/4, Section 13, T50N, R29W, Michigamme Township, Marquette County

The proposed lease classification is development with restrictions. 

*This notice is being republished to add the proposed lease classification.

Written comments by interested parties, relative to the leasing of this description, may be submitted to DNR, Minerals Management, P.O. Box 30452, Lansing, Michigan 48909-7952. All comments must be received no later than 30 days from the date of publication.*

* The new deadline for comments is Dec. 1, 2014.

Editor's Note: Watch for our article on this, coming soon.

Michigan Court of Appeals affirms Eagle Mine’s permits

From: Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve
Posted on their Web site Aug. 15, 2014
Reprinted here with permission

Aerial photo of Lundin Eagle Mine on July 31, 2014. (Photo © and courtesy Jeremiah Eagle Eye. Reprinted with permission.)

MARQUETTE -- On Aug. 13, 2014, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision to continue the Lundin Eagle Project, the only mine in the U.S. where nickel is the primary targeted material in addition to copper. The original co-petitioners against the permitting of the mine include: Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve (YDWP), National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC), and the Huron Mountain Club (HMC). The operation has been in development since 2003 and in litigation since 2006.

The Michigan Court of Appeals agreed in 2012 to hear the case regarding the 2007 decision to issue the mining and discharge permits to Kennecott Minerals. The date for oral arguments was set for June 3, 2014. Over 500 tribal members traveled from the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community to attend the hearing in Lansing and staged a demonstration on the steps of the courthouse in opposition to the project. The portal to the mine enters through Eagle Rock, a sacred native place of worship in ceded territory, facts which have been disregarded by the state justice system. Now that the ruling has been settled, the Lundin Eagle Mine is permitted to move forward into production sometime during fall 2014.

"If only judges were required to pay a visit to the location in legal debate, then they might have seen a different picture," said Mindy Otto, Executive Director of the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve. "The project lacks a complete Environmental Impact Statement required by law, and now we are seeing a pattern of activities that are illegal and detrimental and are caused by the rapid development of a haul road for this mine project which should have been included in that document."

Otto is referring to the recent violation of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act when an unlawful quantity of turbid water and suspended sediment was deposited in a wetland, tributary, and the East Branch of the Salmon Trout River dated Aug. 4, 2014.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruling is a disgrace to tribal nations and the environmental justice system designed to protect what we value most in this Great Lakes state. Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve will continue preserving and protecting the Yellow Dog Watershed, identifying threats, and holding natural resource agencies accountable to their position with a slew of honest scientists and concerned citizens while we consider more legal options.

New Groundwater Discharge Permit proposed for Lundin Eagle Mine: Analysis by Michelle Halley

[Editor's Note:  The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) is seeking to renew the Lundin Eagle Mine’s Ground Water Discharge Permit. MDEQ has extended the comment period and will soon announce a public hearing on the permit. According to Save the Wild U.P. (SWUP), the renewal permit contains significantly weakened environmental regulations. SWUP has posted an analysis of the proposed permit by attorney Michelle Halley for Freshwater Future, an organization working to ensure the healthy future of waters in the Great Lakes region.]

By Michelle Halley for Freshwater Future*
Posted on Save the Wild U.P. Jan. 29, 2014
Reprinted in part with permission

Exceedances and MDEQ’s Failure to Act and Backwards Regulation

During the current permit period, the mine has exceeded it limits at least 47 times, in at least the following constituents and characteristics:

• pH;
• arsenic;
• copper;
• lead;
• molybdenum;
• silver; and
• vanadium.

MDEQ has taken no enforcement action. In fact, the mine has exceeded its vanadium limit more than 20 times. Instead of enforcing the limit, in this renewal permit, MDEQ is easing the limit.** This is completely backwards. The MDEQ’s role is regulator, not conciliator. The limits were set, supposedly based upon sound science, as MDEQ strenuously argued during the months-long contested case that encompassed the current groundwater discharge permit. Now, rather than protecting water quality, the draft simply increases the limits to industry’s preferred levels. The facility’s performance should be required to meet the regulatory standards rather than the regulatory standards being adjusted to meet the facility’s performance. ...
Click here to read the rest of this analysis on Save the Wild U.P.

Editor's Notes:
* Michelle Halley, former National Wildlife Federation attorney and senior manager, is also the author of a 2012 report titled "Sulfide Mining Regulation in the Great Lakes Region: A Comparative Analysis of Regulation in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ontario." Learn more about Freshwater Future on their Web site.
** See also "DEQ proposes new groundwater discharge permit for Eagle Mine; public hearing to be announced."