Investigation Of GTAC-Labeled Nitric Acid Bottle Found On Farm Ends

The investigation of a small nitric acid bottle found on a farm near the proposed Penokee Hills iron ore mine is on hold unless new information surfaces, though the Ashland County sheriff’s report concludes the bottle was deliberately placed there.

The-two week investigation concludes that the bottle, marked “GTAC” and “nitric acid,” was placed on the O’Dovero family farm on purpose, but that it can’t be determined who did it and why. Ashland County Sheriff Lieutenant Michael Malmberg said tracks leading to the bottle prove it was deliberately placed on the farm near Mellen late last month, about the same time a Michigan engineering firm working for Gogebic Taconite was testing streams for metal traces.

Coleman Engineering denies that they were testing on the O’Dovero farm, and told Malmberg that someone was “dumpster diving” for bottles they threw away.

GTAC spokesman Bob Seitz said the bottle which contained one teaspoon of nitric acid, didn’t belong to them. He stopped short of saying it was planted there to make GTAC look bad.

“It’s always a concern when you see that people would be willing to go so far as to go into somebody else’s dumpster and pull out their garbage,” said Seitz. “Obviously, there are people who don’t want the issue decided by science. They want it to be decided by deception.”

Wendy Koosman of the O’Dovero family, which publicly opposes the proposed mine, sees the planted bottle as a form of harassment.

“We feel threatened and harassed and violated,” she said. “I mean, we don’t go running around and doing stuff on other people’s property. I don’t know why anybody felt it necessary to do it to us. I just wish that they could find the perpetrator and do what’s right.”

Fingerprints were found on the bottle, but Malmberg wrote that it was too smudged to recover enough details. He said the bottle didn’t pose an environmental threat, but it was possible a person or animal could have gotten a chemical burn from it.

Although the nitric acid water sampling bottles are used to detect other minerals like copper, gold, or silver, GTAC said they are not looking for those metals, and are just exploring for trace metals.