Federal Agencies Meet With GTAC, Regional Tribes Over Proposed Mine

The Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are getting involved in the proposed iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin.

Separate meetings were held this week in Chicago with Gogebic Taconite, the company interested in mining; federal regulators; and tribes from Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.

Bad River Tribal Chairman Mike Wiggins says the EPA is hitting the reset button on mining because of the controversies over the proposed 4.5-mile-long open-pit mine in the Penokee Hills.

“This meeting with the EPA was important and significant in that it brought some of the regulators to the table,” says Wiggins. “But at the same time it wasn’t the sort of meeting where there’s going to be direct formal action.”

Wiggins says the tribes pushed the EPA to protect the environment. “What about protection and preservation, rather than always talking restoration and reclamation?” he asks.

GTAC met with the EPA and the Corps as well. GTAC spokesman Bob Seitz says they want the federal agencies to enter the fray.

“We asked the EPA to become more involved in the process earlier,” says Seitz. “We’d like to know everything the EPA would like to have us test for, what information they want us to find.”

An EPA spokeswoman wrote in an email that the meetings produced some good ideas to better coordinate the process.