David J. Mladenoff: No fire sale for North Woods mine

The proposed metallic mining law now being considered in the Wisconsin Legislature would circumvent Department of Natural Resources permitting processes and exempt a single industry from environmental protections. 

This is particularly ill-advised because of the environmental and societal risks, and because it is not necessary. 

The proposed Gogebic Taconite mine on the Gogebic/Penokee Range of Iron and Ashland counties is not a factory that could just as well go to Mississippi without state incentives. The company put this in motion several years ago, with knowledge of existing laws and procedures, because it is such a valuable venture. 

A mine must go where the minerals are. This iron deposit is one of the largest remaining unmined deposits of commercial grade that exists. There is no reason to exempt it from current permitting processes and protections. 

To carry out this bad faith effort on the state citizens will not speed the mine development. Instead, it will ensure the most adversarial atmosphere possible and years of court action. 

I am a native of Hurley on the Gogebic Range. Until the mid-1960s when the original mines closed, my father and uncles were miners, and my grandfathers before them. When the companies left in the 1960s, they took thousands of jobs and left nothing but poverty. 

Passing through Hurley today is a painful sight. The area has been in decline for 40 years. Before reasonable laws existed, mining companies took wealth and left poverty. 

Mining is by definition extraction, and it is finite. The Gogebic Taconite mine is estimated to have a life of 30 years, and then the commercially viable ore will be gone. 

The boom-and-bust cycle will repeat itself. It is not an industry that can be sustained. There is no reason to give away this valuable commodity in a fire sale along with our more valuable north woods environment.

The Gogebic Taconite investors have leased rights to mine a huge deposit that has been known and retained in mining company ownership for nearly 50 years after the original mines closed. The lands and mineral ownership have been held by some of these original companies, while its value increased along with the poverty above the ground. 

Now these long-time land and mineral owners will profit again, along with Gogebic Taconite, earning more millions of dollars. For all this time, no concern was shown to the families that lost their economic lifeline, with no alternative jobs available. The largest remaining "payroll" in that area has been Social Security.

Wind Farm near Iron Ridge, Wisconsin May 2,2009

The music in this video is intended to give the feeling of the constant disruption caused by living too close to wind turbines that are 40 stories tall. Feel free to turn off the sound if it starts to drive you crazy. Residents in this wind farm don’t have that option. In our rush to put up as many wind farms as possible as fast as possible, are we putting them too close to homes and sensitive wild life areas? What happens when the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin gets to pick the setbacks? The PSC has already allowed wind turbines that are forty stories tall to be sited 1000 feet from non-participating residents homes. This video is one in a series intended to help our legislators understand why the PSC’s setbacks are not adequate enough to protect residents from noise, shadow-flicker and other problems associated with poorly sited industrial wind turbines. Safe setbacks are the issue here. Wisconsin’s setbacks are not just inadequate, they are dangerous.

The iron mines of Iron Ridge, Wisconsin

Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey

Wisconsin statutes

Geology of Wisconsin, Survey of 1873-1879 ...

Digest of decisions under the Interstate Commerce Act, from 1908