Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) has met with several legislators about its proposed open pit iron ore (taconite) mine along the border of Ashland and Iron counties to push legislation that would drastically speed up the mine permitting process.

The present review process, which was the result of hard-fought environmental battles in the 1970s, can take several years, depending on the complexity of the mine plan and the potential environmental impacts of the project. However, Sen. Rich Zipperer (R-Pewaukee) and state Rep. Mark Honadel (R-South Milwaukee) plan to propose legislation that would reduce the review to 300 days. GTAC President Bill Williams told a reporter that his company may abandon its plans for a $1.5 billion taconite mine and processing plant if the process takes too long.

Ever since a grass-roots Indian and environmental alliance defeated a proposal to build a metallic sulfide mine at Crandon, the international mining industry has considered the state among the least favorable places for mining investment.

In 1998, the state passed the Mining Moratorium Law, which requires that before the state can issue a permit for the mining of sulfide ore bodies, potential miners must provide an example of where a metallic sulfide mine in the United States or Canada has not polluted surface and groundwaters during or after mining. In 2003, the Sokaogon Chippewa and the Forest County Potawatomi tribes bought the Crandon mine property for $16.5 million and ended a 28-year conflict over the mine.

GTAC now wants to turn back the clock on environmental protection and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples. Gogebic Taconite is a limited liability company registered on the Toronto Stock Exchange and owned by the Cline Group, a coal mining company based in Florida. Christopher Cline is a billionaire who owns large coal reserves in Illinois and Northern Appalachia.

If GTAC has its way, local citizens and the Bad River Chippewa tribe, who will be most directly affected by the proposed mine, will have little opportunity to participate in a thorough review of the social, economic and environmental impacts of the project. What information might be disclosed during a mine permit review process that would be so threatening to GTAC?

Bad River Chippewa Chairman Mike Wiggins Jr. is concerned that this mine could discharge polluted water to the Bad River watershed and the tribe’s wild rice beds in the Kakagon Sloughs, a 16,000-acre complex of wetlands, woodlands and sand dune ecosystems that is one of the largest freshwater estuaries in the world.

Wild rice is a sacred plant for the Chippewa and is very sensitive to water contamination as well as fluctuations in water levels. Dewatering operations at the proposed mine could lower the water table around the mine. It was the effort to protect the Sokaogon Chippewa’s wild rice beds that propelled the Crandon mine conflict.

The proposed mine involves extracting taconite by removing about 650 feet of overburden and creating a narrow pit around 4 miles long, up to 900 feet deep and a quarter-mile wide. The overburden would be dumped in massive tailings piles along the northwest side of the Penokee-Gogebic Range and at the headwaters of the Bad River Watershed. These large tailings piles have the potential to generate acid rock drainage if sulfide minerals are present in the waste rock.

These issues need to be evaluated in a fair and open environmental review through which the public and the Lake Superior Chippewa bands have the opportunity to have full disclosure of the potential impacts of the project. Legislation that would reduce the review process to 300 days would severely limit full disclosure of these impacts and be in direct violation of both state environmental law and treaties with the Lake Superior Chippewa bands.

Zipperer has expressed his desire to have the legislation passed before the end of the current session on June 30. Why is this legislation being fast-tracked? If passed, this legislation will effectively exclude Wisconsin citizens and tribes from having a voice in one of the most far reaching environmental decisions facing northern Wisconsin communities.

Originally published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Town Hall meeting with State Senator Tom Casperson (R-Escanaba) and State Representative Matt Huuki (R-Chassell) on Saturday, April 23, at Michigan Tech began with a discussion on budget cuts, the need for jobs and tax base, and proposed development of natural resources — which led to criticism of federal regulation to protect those resources.

Casperson appeared to be sympathetic in his answer to a question by a special education teacher on Medicaid cuts affecting wheel chairs for severely impaired students and people in nursing homes, saying he would be willing to bring a wheel chair up north himself if the issue weren’t complicated by the need for it to be fitted to the user.

“I’m going to go to the appropriations chair in the Senate, and I’m going to bring that up with them,” he said.

Huuki said this problem was an example of “the magnitude of the issues we’re facing right now” –a $ 1.4 billion deficit. “Surface” arguments over whose piece of the pie gets cut will not solve the problem, he added.

Huuki expressed his concern about the budget cuts, especially to schools.

“We’re dealing with major issues with our schools,” Huuki said. “Trust me. I’ve got stomach aches about our schools and what we’re facing there.”

Huuki noted he had introduced legislation to help Upper Peninsula schools by allowing smaller schools to save money from administration and put it into classroom use.

“We’ve got to get to the root of our issues, and the root of our issues is the lack of jobs. That is what I’ve been focusing on,” Huuki said. “How are we going to get employment back here to get the tax base back to enable us to have the services that we need here in Michigan?”

A comment from the audience on “all that natural gas under Lake Michigan” was met with some applause from the audience — and followed by a negative comment about the “green movement.”

Huuki noted Canada is doing well because they’ve accessed their natural resources (and possibly ours) by drilling under the Great Lakes. He said we could do this “responsibly” ourselves instead of buying the gas from them. Huuki said we need to “unshackle ourselves” — apparently a reference to easing environmental regulation — so that we can access these natural resources.

Casperson noted, aside from the Great Lakes sources, natural gas deposits on state land below the bridge, north of the Gaylord area, could possibly earn the state $100,000,000 a year for the Natural Resources Trust Fund.

“It’s our money. It’s the people’s money,” Casperson said.

Neither Casperson nor Huuki nor anyone in the audience brought up the current concern about the hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” method of obtaining natural gas and the dangers it poses to drinking water.

An April 19, 2011, article in the Michigan Messenger notes a recent congressional report that “the nation’s 14 leading natural gas drilling service companies used hydraulic fracturing fluids containing 29 different chemicals regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) as potential human carcinogens.” The article adds that Michigan auctioned off 120,000 acres of state land for hydrofracking and plans to auction off half a million more acres soon. In addition thousands of acres of private land have been leased to gas companies for this process.*

Neither elected official mentioned specifically how accessing natural gas below the Mackinac Bridge would provide jobs for people above the bridge. Neither one mentioned sustainable jobs or non-fossil-fuel alternative energy potential.

To a question on whether the federal government was preventing natural gas development, Casperson said he didn’t know as far as natural gas was concerned, but the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) had limited industry’s access to other resources.

Casperson referred — without naming it — to Rio Tinto-Kennecott’s Eagle Mine for nickel and copper when he said the EPA had halted the construction of County Road 595 intended as a haul road for the mine.

“It was EPA who literally stepped in and has halted the project,” Casperson said.

He didn’t explain to this audience — or perhaps he meant to oversimplify the issue — that the EPA and two other federal agencies — the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission — had objected to the original Woodland Road (a private Kennecott road) proposed last year. Local Marquette officials then came up with County Road 595, which would be a public road, but intended for Kennecott’s haul trucks. Since then, Kennecott is proposing two haul road plans.**

Casperson said the proposed road affected 22 acres of wetlands over a 22-mile stretch of road.

“I personally don’t see where that can’t be overcome,” Casperson said.

He went on to explain that he and Huuki had sent a letter from “the entire Michigan delegation” to U.S. Senator Carl Levin and the U.S. Congressional delegation urging them to tell the EPA not to regulate this (Kennecott) project.

“Senator Levin has been working in his office pretty hard to try and help this project along,” Casperson said.

Editor’s Notes:

* See the Michigan Messenger Apr. 19, 2011, article, “Congressional probe finds 29 human carcinogens in hydraulic fracturing fluids.”

** See Catherine Parker’s Feb. 7, 2011, Letter to the Editor, “Road to somewhere” on County Road 595, and accompanying links.

See also the Marquette Mining Journal Feb. 12, 2011, article, “Two-fold approach,” on Kennecott’s haul road plans.

This is the first in a series of articles with video clips on the topics covered at the Apr. 23 Town Hall meeting.

Already West Branch Township (the current owner) is selling off equipment inside.  It took vigilant citizens and a phone call to the police before everyone realized what was going on.  The building, prized by a community that already lacks many of the amenities found elsewhere in the county, might soon be reduced to a gutted-out scrap heap after an auction slated for May 21st.  Turns out the county could’ve bought it for only $110,000.

There’s plenty of money left in a multi-million dollar stabilization fund the U.S. Air Force designated to help build a community at Sawyer when the feds left in the mid-1990s.  A small bit of this could be used to help the community center.  Certainly, most of it has been drained to pad annual losses for the regional airport and to give to a number of companies eager to benefit from the tax-free “Renaissance Zone” located there.

Last year Cliffs Natural Resources posted record quarterly profits on its global operations; at its iron mining complex, visible from Sawyer, business was booming.  At the same time, this mining giant was exempted from paying state and local taxes at its new Renewafuel biomass plant for another 15 years.

Argonics, a small plastics manufacturer, also benefited from the generous tax breaks, moving from its facility in the city of Marquette to Sawyer.  In fact, the county spent $900,000 to refurbish the building Argonics now operates out of, and gave the company well over a million dollars in loan funding.  The rationale was that Argonics would possibly create 15 jobs at Sawyer.  While some county officials brag that they created 1,200 jobs at Sawyer, it’s unclear really how many new jobs were created (nowhere even close to the claimed figure) and no one seems to know if Argonics made good on its promise to create even 15 jobs in exchange for millions in benefits.

One county commissioner is on the board of Argonics.  Brazenly, Paul Arsenault voted against helping the KI Sawyer community by buying the community center for a small fraction of what he helped to give to Argonics.

Now, we understand the importance of attracting and retaining jobs to the area, and many of the companies at Sawyer provide much-needed jobs without taking too much from county coffers.  While it’s debatable whether the millions of dollars in profligate tax breaks, free money, and generous loans was necessary to create new jobs in the area, or if that many permanent new jobs were even created, a focus on subsidizing some private businesses at Sawyer so generously smells a little bad when county government can’t cough up some of the stabilization money to help the regional community, as well.

As Community Hand-UP’s Lisa Johnson will tell you, the Sawyer community center once served folks from all around the Upper Peninsula, kept school kids off the streets, helped keep seniors healthy, and provided an exercise venue for one of the most physically unfit counties in Michigan.

According to commissioner Mike Quayle, who voted in support of the community center, “It is embarrassing to me to not furnish this money…We took $900,000 dollars out of the county stabilization fund to move a business that promised only 15 new jobs…yet we can’t find $100,000 dollars to take care of these kids?”

Commissioner Bill Nordeen, who represents KI Sawyer, was more blunt:

“I’m ashamed of this commission.  Marquette County went to Sawyer, took all the resources, and has yet to give anything back.  They used south Marquette County and do nothing for them.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s a terrible atrocity.”

But the fight’s not over yet.  The auction isn’t for another month and we suspect county officials will catch some fire from citizens upset at last night’s unsettling vote and ready to fight for their community.  Hopefully county officials will have another opportunity to do the right thing before the community center is gone for good.

Senator Casperson faces challenges to state's budget cuts

Facing a crowd openly hostile to his support of proposed budget cuts and other measures that crack down on Michigan workers, seniors, and students, Michigan Senator Tom Casperson expressed his support for big business at a town hall meeting in Marquette yesterday evening.  Casperson insisted that forcing corporations to pay more in taxes will hurt efforts rebuild the state’s economy.

Negaunee resident and Michigan Education Association UniServ Director for the area, Stuart Skauge, along with most of the packed audience, wasn’t buying it.

Negaunee resident and Michigan Education Association UniServ Director for the area, Stuart Skauge, asks Casperson questions

“I’ve got a question on that, why is it with the flat tax then – the 6% – that 95,000 businesses in this state won’t pay any state taxes for business – 95,000?” asked Skauge.  “And then they’re going to take it away from the schools.  Are you people idiots down there?”

Meghan McLeod, a teacher from Gwinn Middle School, says she makes $30,000 dollars a year and can’t afford more teacher cuts.

Middle School Teacher Meghan Mcleod

“I don’t want to have to, on my 25^th birthday, move home with my parents,” said McLeod.  “I just want to make it clear, I want a level playing field.  And you said you took a 10% pay reduction, and you were okay with that because you can afford it.  I can’t afford it.”

Casperson told McLeod he couldn’t argue with her that teachers should pay 20% of their insurance costs and suffer a 5% reduction in pay.

When a new member of the Ishpeming School Board asked Casperson if he would vote to cut funding for K-12 education Casperson quickly answered, “yes.”

“I don’t see how we get around not doing some kind of a cut,” said Casperson.

The audience was more than willing to offer a solution, with many shouting, “Tax the businesses!”

“I’m trying to find a way to bring Michigan back, so we have companies that want to come into this state and do business,” Casperson replied.  “And that’s been a problem for probably the last ten years.  It’s not all taxes either by the way; we’ve got some major problems with regulations.”

According to Casperson, Governor Rick Snyder proposed an across-the-board 6% corporate tax because between 2007 and 2008 business taxes were raised in Michigan, with a restructuring of the tax, along with a 22% surcharge.

“The results were pretty glaring,” said Casperson.  “The point is there that we tried that and what ultimately happened was that the business community either struggles with it so they’re not hiring or they leave.”

“Where it gets really dicey and troublesome is how high we go with it before we become uncompetitive with the other states around us and then we can say, ‘oh well we balanced our budget, we don’t have to take any cuts because we passed it on to them.’  And then we end up with the same thing we’ve got and that’s lack of jobs.” said Casperson.

Margaret Comfort, a nurse from Michigamme, disagreed that corporations need a better deal.

“There are huge mega corporations that stand to make billions … but not pay much money if they make a big mess,” said Comfort.  “One such corporation [is] Dow Chemical.”  Comfort said that Michigan follow in the steps of Australia and require the mining industry to pay more in taxes.

Concerned crowd demands answers to budget cuts

Casperson suggested one of the problems is workers’ unions are preventing companies from operating in the state.

“The Free Press, they went down and looked at the Toyota plant, this isn’t my numbers, it’s their numbers,” said Casperson.  “The auto workers down there were hired and paid $30 dollars an hour; the [United Auto Workers] in Michigan $28.50.”

However, an Associated Press study found that, while Toyota paid their Kentucky workers slightly more in wages than unionized workers in Detroit made, with both wages and benefits considered General Motors was paying its unionized workforce $69/hour, while the Toyota plant only had to pay $48/hour.  Others suggest that foreign manufacturers, like Toyota, also have incentives to pay their workers more in order to prevent them from unionizing.

“That concerns me only because I want [companies] to be here in Michigan.  I want us to be competitive and get those jobs up here.”

Casperson took an even harder line on unemployed workers.

“Michigan’s the first state in the union to reduce unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks,” said Marquette attorney Kevin Koch.  “Would you be willing to

Ron Sundell, Northern Michigan University's AAUP Representative and Associate Professor warns Casperson, "It’s becoming once again where the rich can afford to go to school and nobody else can."

reverse that legislation?  And, if not, why not?”

“No,” Casperson replied.  “We’re all in big trouble right now, because the debt owed to unemployment is going through the roof right now.  I guess I’m going to ask, how long do we stay on unemployment before it becomes a social service program?”

Toward the end of a long and raucous meeting, local resident Paul Olson left Casperson with a warning:

“Kicking those two hornets nests, organized labor and teachers, has been a critical error, my advice to you, person to person, is anything you can do to distance yourself [from other Republicans] I highly recommend it.  They’re [unions and teachers] never going to stop, you have frightened them, you got them scared for their lives, they’re the most intelligent, best organized they are never going to stop until every last one of you guys is out of office.”

In Benton Harbor, Emergency Manager Joseph Harris issued an order Thursday placing severe restraints on city government.  All city governing bodies now cannot take any official action without “express written authorization and approval” from Harris.  City commissions and boards have been restricted to calling meetings to order, approving meeting minutes, and adjourning meetings.

View Harris’ by clicking here.

Robert Bobb, Detroit Public School’s Emergency Manager is sending layoff notices to all of its 5,466 unionized teachers, and non-renewal notices to 248 administrators.  Layoffs won’t take effect until July and Bobb will decide how many employees will lose their jobs, taking into account declining enrollment.

Bobb also announced plans to modify the district’s collective bargaining agreement with the Federation of Teachers, beginning on May 17.

According to Reuters, Bobb was appointed to manage the school district two years ago, yet the district still suffers from a $327 million budget deficit:

He was appointed emergency financial manager for Detroit’s schools two years ago by then-Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, to close chronic budget deficits brought on by declining enrollment. Over just the past year, Detroit’s population has dropped 25 percent, according to census data.

Bobb has closed schools, laid-off workers and taken other steps to cut spending but the district still faces a $327 million deficit in its $994 million budget.

The Michigan Citizen reports that Bobb was booed out of a town hall meeting by angry parents on April 12 and cancelled his public meeting for the following day.

According to the Detroit Public School’s website, Bobb plans to eventually close 40 Detroit schools and convert many into charter schools.

Snyder is Doing What? A common slogan at the rally.

In February,  Michigan Governor Rick Snyder called his new budget bill a “shared sacrifice,”  but that’s not how many workers and citizens saw it.  To challenge Snyder’s new budget and recent bills, nearly 1,200 workers and citizens from across the Upper Peninsula rallied on the Marquette County Courthouse steps with a shared vision of ‘protecting working class and middle class families.’

Citizens Hold Signs During Rally

Snyder’s Republican allies recently introduced a number of controversial bills, including an Emergency Financial Manager bill, which many citizens view as an attack on workers’ collective bargaining rights and democratic decision-making.  To add to the fire, Snyder’s new budget would shift the tax burden from corporations onto individuals, cutting funding for public services and schools, and taxing pensions.

“I’m retired, and I certainly don’t want to pay taxes on a pension, having worked all those years while he gives tax cuts to people who don’t need it,” shouted former Democratic Senator Mike Prusi.  Prusi made clear he wanted corporations to do well financially but said, “I want them to be good citizens and pay their damn taxes like you and I do!”

Despite the chilly spring day, a diverse crowd and variety of speakers came out to represent workers, including local teachers’ and nurses’ unions, building trades and construction unions, and students, among others.

Carolyn Hietamaki, a registered nurse from Marquette General said, “People who rob banks wind up in prison … while companies get bailouts and tax breaks.”  A popular slogan and sign of the evening was sponsored by the Michigan Nurses Association and read, ‘Some cuts never heal.’

Some cuts never heal! MI Nurses Association

But the focus of the evening was that workers and citizens must stay united.

“We must stick together and put up a fight against Lansing … I stand in support of unions because I support the middle class. Labor rights are human rights.  How about we come up with solutions where corporations pay their share of taxes,” said the Northern Michigan University College Democrat representative.

NMU College Democrat

Also present was former State Representative Gary McDowell who reminded ralliers that, “We got to make sure Lansing legislators know who they represent.”

Approximately 4,500 Michiganders also gathered at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing on Wednesday to protest Snyder’s handling of the state’s budget and labor rights.  Some were asking for recall efforts.

“This new governor, it seems as though he’s not for the working-class people. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a one-timer,” 54-year old East Lansing construction worker Gregory Jackson told the Lansing State Journal.

Michigan Messenger reports that Virg Bernero, Snyder’s former Democratic rival, also  spoke in Lansing saying, “It’s not the money changers on Wall Street that make America work. It’s not the big banks that make America work.  It’s you.”

Back at the Marquette rally, workers stressed  that this would not be an easy struggle,  a lesson evident  to citizens in the Northwoods earlier this year when tens of thousands of people gathered in Madison to protest Governor Scott Walker’s budget cuts and attack on labor rights.

Mike Prusi urged the crowd to keep up the momentum and work together:  “This is not going to be solved by showing up to a ‘rah-rah’ on a cold day in April … Keep your fire burning.”

Snyder's Bill is 'Dog Gone Wrong'

Rick Snyder’s plan to “reinvent Michigan” apparently entails fairly standard, run-of-the-mill corporate thuggery, something his vastly under-funded opponent, Virg Bernero, warned us about during the lead-up to the 2010 election: give tax breaks to wealthy companies and make everyone else pay, and pay hard, to fix the state’s budget crisis.

Snyder has chosen to deal with an $1.8 billion budget shortfall by giving $1.8 billion in tax breaks to companies. By squeezing hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents just a bit more than they are already, Snyder will be able to pay for his tax giveaway to the rich, and possibly balance the budget too.

It is understandable changes need to be made in order for Michigan’s economy to work again. Eight years of Jennifer Granholm’s dishonest or delusional assurances that a vague “green economy” was just around the corner and ready to lift Michigan out of deep recession certainly wasn’t cutting it. But Snyder’s ideological plan goes too far.

Snyder’s Republican colleagues (only one state Republican voted “no”) have vested him with “emergency financial manager” powers. It sounds like some kind of nerdy superpower. And tough? Yes, but to the point of possibly being unconstitutional, and certainly anti-democratic.

The emergency financial manager law allows Snyder, himself, to appoint an emergency financial manager to unilaterally take over a struggling school district or local municipality. The emergency manager has no salary cap or term limit, and serves “at the pleasure of the governor.” The emergency manager can override publicly-elected boards, seize assets, strip unions of collective bargaining rights, cancel labor contract agreements, force a municipality to place a property tax millage on the ballot . . . the emergency manager, in other words, has a lot of power.

Every single Republican state representative in the Upper Peninsula (there’s only one Democrat) voted for Snyder’s draconian bill: Senators Tom Casperson and Howard Walker; and Representatives Matt Huuki, Ed McBroom, and Frank Foster. It is a sad day when folks elected into public office based upon a message of being anti-big government and pro-democracy choose to come down so hard on their own constituents by vesting Snyder with kingly powers.

Former Wisconsin governor Robert M. La Follette once warned that democracies, too, can produce oppressive rulers:

“We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results. Now, there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any other. We are slow to realize that democracy is a life; and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.”

Political representation is supposed to be a fluid, always changing process. Sure, Rick Snyder easily won election over his under-funded opponent, but that doesn’t mean Michigan citizens must endure Snyder’s thuggish anti-worker ideology for four years. Already, polls indicate Snyder would lose his seat if the election happened today. Snyder should be responsive to this.

A group has formed to recall Snyder. firericksnyder.org even has a countdown clock on its website reminding viewers how many seconds must pass before signatures can be collected in an effort to oust the new governor.

Recalling the governor is likely a difficult battle but is something Michigan’s families, workers and retirees may well rally around. After all, we voted for a governor, not a king.