The Crandon
zinc-copper
shaft mine
proposed in
Wisconsin
Upstream of
the Mole Lake
Chippewa Reservation
and the Wolf River
Exxon’s first round (1976-86)
1976 Discovers one of North
America’s largest zinc/copper
sulfide ore bodies
• 1981 Lobbyist James Klauser
says WI “could host up to 10
metal mines by 2000...."
• 1983Mines exempted from
clean groundwater standards,
toxic waste standard, foreign
land ownership law.
• 1986 Withdraws its permit
application after Final EIS.
• 1987 Klauser appointed
Secretary of Administration
in Tommy Thompson’s cabinet.
• 1988 WI declares Wolf River
"Outstanding Resource Water"
Metallic mining concerns
• Environmental
– Sulfides (sulfuric acid) contaminate for 200,000 years
– Heavy metals, cyanide, arsenic, etc.
– 10,000 miles of U.S. rivers poisoned
• Economic
– Boom-and-bust effect
– Impact on existing industries
• Cultural
– Native cultures
– Rural lifestyle
Environmental concerns
• Run-off of sulfuric acid, heavy metals
– impacts on fish, wild rice, other aquatic life
• Drawdown of groundwater table from shaft pumping
– Impacts on water supplies, wild rice, wetlands
• Pumping groundwater
– Treatment of contaminated water in perpetuity
– Wastes monitored for 40 years
44 million tons of waste
Tailings Management Area
– 90 feet deep
– largest toxic dump in WI history:
282 football fields
• Waste rock backfill of shaft
• Release of toxic dust into air
Wetlands & springs
in 4,800-acre mine site
“You couldn’t find a more
difficult place to mine.”
-Exxon engineer
Company’s environmental arguments
• “Only old mines pollute”
– Western U.S. acid mine drainage
• “New technologies”
– Wastewater treatment
– Extraction of sulfuric acid from wastes
• Isolate mine through “grouting”
Economic concerns
Effects on Wolf River tourism
• Lack of jobs for locals
– alternative economic options not
explored
• Boom-and-bust cycle
– poorest areas often were
mine-dependent
• Sudden lay-offs or mine closure
– swings in metal prices,
reduced demands
Company’s economic arguments
• 400 jobs for mine operation
– Keep kids in depressed rural area
• Secondary contracts to area businesses
– Crandon, Rhinelander, Antigo benefit
• Mining equipment contracts
– Milwaukee-area manufacturers
Need for metals?
• Low prices
– Glut of zinc and copper
– New sources in Russia, China
• Less use
– Plastics/ceramics in autos, piping
– Fiber optics replacing copper wire
• More metallic recycling
Cultural concerns
• Wild rice beds
• Future of hunting/
fishing/gathering
• Burials and sacred sites
• Influx of outsiders
• Rural social fabric
Ojibwe (Chippewa)
lands ceded in treaties
Six Wisconsin reservations
Treaties
guarantee
tribal access
to resources
Treaties & the environment
• Federal courts recognize rights
– Rights in ceded territories retained, not granted
– Boldt 1974 WA, Voigt 1983 WI, Mille Lacs 1999 MN
– Not just allocaiton, but habitat
• Legal tool to guarantee access to resources
– Not mineral rights, but prevent harm to resources
• Basis of resource co-management with non-Indian govt’s
Sovereignty & the environment
• Federal trust responsibility to protect reservation
– “EPA Treatment-As-State” in Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act
• International legal tools
– United Nations, international agreements
“We have more in common with the anti-Indian people than we do
with the State of Wisconsin.” — Spearfisher Walt Bresette, 1990
Exxon returns (1992-98)
• 1992 Exxon returns to Crandon • 1995 CMC plan to pipe
to reapply for mine permit (with
wastewater to Wisconsin River
Phelps-Dodge briefly).
heightens opposition.
• 1993 Exxon and Canada’s Rio • 1996 Wolf & Wisconsin R.
Algom form Crandon Mining
speaking tour draws 2000.
Company (CMC). Lynne mine
plan dropped by Noranda in
Oneida County. Flambeau mine • 1997 Nashville voters oust
pro-mine town board, elect new
begins 4-year shipment of
board to rescind “local
copper ore from Ladysmith in
agreement” with company.
Rusk County.
Niiwin (“Four”) Tribes
• Mole Lake Chippewa
– 1 mi. downstream
– wild rice beds, water quality
• Forest Co. Potawatomi
– 5 mi. downwind
– air quality, toxic dust
• Menominee
– 40 mi. downstream on Wolf R.
• Mohican (Stockbridge-Munsee)
Menominee Sustainable Forestry
Chief Oshkosh
Overcoming divisions
• Race
– Native Americans vs.
white sportfishers
• Class
– Labor unionists vs.
environmentalists
• Region
– Rural northern WI vs
.urban southern WI
Alliance to stop
Crandon mine
Native American
nations
–cultural concerns
–wild rice, sacred sites
Sportfishing clubs
– fish, surface water, toxics
Environmental groups
– wetlands, groundwater,
wildlife/species
Growing
alliance
• Rural residents
– economic impacts on tourism industry, northern lifestyle
• Labor unions
– environment, company health/safety track records
• Students
– corporate control, future sustainability
• Farmers
– feeder line to mine from Duluth-Wausau transmission line
Proposed
transmission lines
From dams that
flooded Cree land
in Manitoba…
…through MN/WI farmlands,
partly to provide power for mine.
Save
Our
Unique
Lands
(SOUL)
http://www.wakeupwisconsin.com
Fighting
DuluthWausau
345-kilovolt
transmission
line, opposing
115-kv feeder
line to Crandon
Perrier/Nestle
in Wisconsin
Adams County
farmers protect
rural wells from
high-capacity pumps;
Ho-Chunk protect
sacred sites,
2000-2002
Mecosta Co., Michigan
Rio Algom goes it alone (1998-2000)
• 1998 Exxon sells most
• 1999 Mole Lake, Potawatomi
Crandon mine interests to Rio
win EPA backing for tribal laws
Algom, which sets up Nicolet
Minerals Company (NMC). • 1999 Federation of Fly Fishers
rates the Wolf River as most
• 1998 Mining Moratorium law
endangered U.S. river.
passed, undermined by DNR
• 1999 NMC revises mine
plans, sets back pipeline.
• 2000 Speaking tour/rally against
Crandon mine and DuluthWausau transmission line.
Tribal and
Federal Government
• Tribal
– Mole Lake “Treatment As State” (Clean Water Act)
– Potawatomi “Treatment As State” (Clean Air Act)
– Menominee, Potawatomi and Mole Lake technical research
• Federal
– Army Corps of Engineers wetlands permit;
– Possible role of EPA
– Federal lawsuits on DNR permit
Local and State
Government
• Local
– Nashville local agreement lawsuit;
– Downstream gov’t resolutions
• State
– DNR permit process (2004 ?)
– Mining reform bills
Wisconsin mining
reform bills
• Mining moratorium (passed 1998)
– Requires companies to show “safe” mines
– DNR assessing 3 examples in AZ, CA, Canada
• Cyanide ban (Passed Senate 2001; reintroduced 2003)
– Mine would use up to 200 tons a year
– Spills around world killed fish
• No Special Treatment (passed Senate 2001; reintroduce 2003)
– End legal exemptions for mining wastes
Typical environmental movements
• Stereotype of
environmentalists
–
–
–
–
Urban-based
White
Upper middle class
“Not In My Back Yard”
• Portrayal by companies
– Hippies
– Yuppie elitists
– Don’t care about rural jobs
Wisconsin
movement
• Unlikely Alliances
1994
–
–
–
–
–
Rural-based
Multiracial
Middle/ working class
Multigenerational
“Not In Anyone’s
Back Yard”
• Dilemma for companies
2000
– Grassroots, common folk
– Cannot easily be defeated
Drawing
from strands of
Wisconsin history
• Progressive populism
– LaFollettes
• Regional pride
– Northern Wisconsin
vs. “Madison”
• Environmental ethics
– Muir, Leopold
• Native American rights
– Opposed removal, treaty
violations, termination
BHP Billiton in control (2000-2003)
• June 2002 BHP Billiton signals
• 2000 Rio Algom and its NMC
willingness to sell site to public.
purchased by London-based South
Alliance for joint management
African miner Billiton.
• Sept. 2002 NMC staff laid off
• 2001 Billiton merges with
but permit process continues.
Australian mining giant Broken
Hill Proprietary (BHP), forms BHP Doyle backs public acquisition.
Billiton.
• April 2003 Mine site sold to
Northern Wisconsin Resource
• Nov. 2001 Cyanide Ban and
Group, owned by logging
“No Special Treatment” bills pass
company ex-owners of site. It
WI Senate, held up in Assembly
could find no corporate partner.
CRANDON
PROTESTS
AUSTRALIA
(BHP shareholders’
meeting, 2001)
SOUTH AFRICA
(at Sustainability
Summit, 2002)
Mining industry reaction
to Wisconsin opposition
“The increasingly sophisticated political maneuvering by
environmental special interest groups has made permitting a mine in
Wisconsin an impossibility.”
—North American Mining (Toronto), 1998
“Wisconsin’s low investment attractiveness score suggests the
impact of that state’s moratorium on mining, and a well-publicized
aversion to mining. One vice president of exploration complains that
in Wisconsin, you ‘can’t get anything done that is meaningful’.”
—Fraser Institute Survey of Mining CEOs (Vancouver), 2000
Mining industry reaction
The Vancouver-based
Fraser Institute issues an annual
Investment Attractiveness Index
ranking the reception that all
countries, states and provinces
give the mining industry.
Wisconsin ranked at the
global bottom in 2003, with
a score of 13 out of 100.
More mining
industry reaction
Wisconsin anti-mining industry websites are operated by
“barbarians at the gates of cyberspace.”
—Mining Voice (Washington), 1998
“The Wolf Watershed Educational Project (WWEP), a U.S.-based
alliance of environmental groups, Native American nations, local
residents, unions and students ...is just one example of what is
becoming a very real threat to the global mining industry:
global environmental activism...”
--Mining Environmental Management (London), 2000
The End: Oct. 28, 2003
Forest County Potawatomi and Mole Lake
announce purchase of mine site for $16.5 million.
The End: Oct. 28, 2003
Mole Lake takes ownership of Nicolet Minerals Company
“We rocked the boat;
Now we own the boat.”
The End: Oct. 28, 2003
5,000-acre mine site will be managed to protect natural
and cultural resources for future generations.
The End: Oct. 28, 2003
Peace comes to Crandon area after 28 years of conflict.
“Now the
war is over.”
The End: Oct. 28, 2003
Native/non-Native grassroots alliance wins a
victory of of national and global relevance.
Websites on Crandon mine
No Crandon Mine links
http://www.nocrandonmine.com
Midwest Treaty Network
http://www.treatyland.com
Wolf River Protection Fund
http://www.WolfRiverProtectionFund.org
Books on Wisconsin mining
Walleye Warriors
(1999) by Walt Bresette
And Rick Whaley
New Resource Wars
(1993) by Al Gedicks
Resource Rebels
(2001) by Al Gedicks
Dr. Zoltán Grossman, Assistant Professor of Geography,
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Permission required for public use.
grossmzc@uwec.edu (715) 836-4471 http://www.uwec.edu/grossmzc