Published Sept. 12, 2025
Reprinted with permission
LANSING, Mich. -- Around 200 Michigan residents marched around the Michigan Capitol building Wednesday afternoon, September 10, to protest the proposed $50 million earmark for infrastructure to advance the Copperwood Mine, a Canadian company’s plan to mine copper sulfide next to and underneath Porcupine Mountains State Park and store the waste upstream from Lake Superior.
"We Michiganders steward over 20 percent of the world's fresh water, and it is our responsibility to ourselves and to future generations to be good stewards," said Marjorie Steele, founder and executive director of the Economic Development Responsibility Alliance of Michigan.
For Nichole Keway Biber, tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and an environmental activist, what really stood out were the amount of young participants present.
"I hope those who point to ephemeral construction jobs and just 11 years of foreign mining will realize that retaining the presence of active and invested youth is a far superior way to assure the long-term vibrancy of U.P. communities."
Participants traveled from as far as Wakefield Township in Gogebic County (where the mine would be located), as well as from most prominent downstate cities. Their signs showed messages such as: "No taxpayer dollars for sulfide mining," "The Porkies ain’t mine, they’re OURS," and "Highland Copper can take a hike!"
Wielding the megaphone at the front of the march was Tom Grotewohl, founder of the Protect the Porkies campaign.
"We are here to ask a simple question," he told participants. "Is it fair to ask Michiganders to pay to advance a Canadian company’s first ever mine? Right next to our favorite State Park? With waste to be stored next to Lake Superior? And copper to be shipped out of country?"
The citizens met each question with shouts of "No!"
The current $50 million earmark has been approved by the House for inclusion in the 2026 budget but not by the Senate. The request is identical in purpose to the highly controversial SOAR grant, twice halted in 2024 due to pushback from "around the state and nation," according to the office of Michigan State Senator Sarah Anthony.
But on April 26th of this year, the funding was reintroduced by Michigan 110th District Rep. Greg Markkanen as a budget earmark and rebranded as a "community infrastructure" proposal, even though the infrastructure -- power grid, cell towers, and heavy industrial roads -- would be rolled out into an area with no year-round residents and no other businesses apart from the proposed Copperwood Mine.
The funding is opposed by the Michigan League of Women Voters, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, and over a hundred other organizations.
"The long-term health of Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains is vastly more important than unrefined copper to be shipped out of the country with no promise of return," said Jane Fitkin, another lead organizer at Protect the Porkies and director of Citizens for a Safe and Clean Lake Superior. "We are optimistic that our lawmakers will listen to the people and not cave in to moneyed interests that represent only a select few business leaders."
Although copper has recently been added to the USGS’s draft list of critical minerals, this upgrade of status is only for refined copper -- copper which has passed through the smelting process -- whereas mined copper is still listed at a negative risk. This may suggest the industrial need for new refineries in the United States, but not new copper mines.
"Michiganders turned out to protect our land and water en force," Steele said. "It's an honor to stand behind them, and we look forward to seeing legislators respond to their constituents and remove the $50M funding package from the 2026 budget."
Outside on the lawn, a few "counter-protestors" were present: State Senator Ed McBroom, InvestUP CEO Marty Fittante, and two of their colleagues. Their own signs read, "Stop the whining, start the mining!"
"This is not really about mining," Grotewohl told them. "Why is it that none of your media releases or public statements make any mention of the Porcupine Mountains or Lake Superior?"
"We don’t need to," said McBroom.
"You do need to," Grotewohl rebutted. "A mine does not exist in a void."
When asked why no one from the local community had joined them in their counter protest -- nor anyone from Lansing or any other city who was not professionally invested in the mine’s advancement -- McBroom and Fittante did not have a reply.
In the end, many of those present at the march simply believe that there must better, less divisive uses of taxpayer dollars.
"There is much work to be done cleaning up the toxic remains of previous extractive boom and bust economic gambles," Biber said. "Our lawmakers should push to fund those jobs."
The fate of the $50 million earmark will now be decided in negotiations between the House and Senate. To avoid government shutdown, the budget must be approved by October 1st.
What you can do:
Visit https://protecttheporkies.com/take-action and learn how you can contact the Governor and Michigan Legislators. Protect the Porkies offers a script you can use to urge legislators to stop the funding for Copperwood. The goal is to ensure that when the House and Senate meet in joint conference, the House agrees to DROP the $50 million request.*
UPDATE: If you missed the Sept. 14 online Forum, "Protect the Porkies," by Tom Grotewohl, offered on Zoom by the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (KUUF), the video recording is now on their Web site. See our right-hand column or go to https://www.keweenawuu.org/sermons/forum-protect-the-porkies/.
*Editor's Note: Even if you are a constituent of 110th District pro-Copperwood legislators McBroom and Markkanen, the above action page lists other legislators you can contact.
