Tribal Leaders Will Meet With EPA To Make Case For Stopping GTAC Mine

Tribal leaders from Wisconsin and Michigan will meet with Environmental Protection Agency officials next month to urge them to stop mining activity in the Lake Superior region of northern Wisconsin.

The six tribes of Wisconsin’s Chippewa Federation sent a letter to the EPA on May 27, asking them to invoke a section of the Clean Water Act to stop mining exploration by Gogebic Taconite (GTAC). The company wants to build the largest open-pit iron ore mine in North America.

Now, the EPA has set a meeting with the Ojibwe bands August 16 in Grand Traverse, Mich.

Bad River Tribal Chairman Mike Wiggins said President Barack Obama told Native leaders that the U.S. government has a covenant to protect tribal homelands.

“I don’t know of many other tribes that are under the type of imminent threat our tribe is under, as we form up the catch-basin of a watershed that is slated to have its headwaters exploded,” said Wiggins.

He added: “When I think about trust responsibility, the relationship between the states and the tribes, we definitely need to (have) some federal activity in motion to protect our tribal homeland.”

Wiggins said new state mining laws don’t protect the environment. He also said that EPA intervention would allow federal regulators to gather information from the site. State law allows only state and mining employees within 600 feet of the mine site.

GTAC spokesman Bob Seitz said they want to continue exploration of the mine site.

“We find it confusing that folks want the science done, they want the research done, they want the facts to come out, and then they would petition to stop gathering the facts,” said Seitz.

In February, the EPA invoked the Clean Water Act to stop Alaska’s Pebble Mine in an effort to protect the Bristol Bay fishery. Federal regulators must decide if that mine would do irreparable damage there.