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New Mining Boom May Be In Store
STEPHENSON, MI (AP) - While digging a well six years ago, the owner of a backwoods
camp near the Michigan-Wisconsin line cut into sparkling rock. He showed a sample
to a geologist friend, who realized it was laced with zinc.
They and others formed a company that discovered a nearly 2-billion-year-old
rock formation encasing precious metals - not just zinc, but also gold, silver
and copper. If all goes according to plan, Aquila Resources Inc. will establish
a mine on several hundred rural acres near the Menominee River within a few
years, president Tom Quigley said.
Companies are exploring at least 14 acres in Michigan’s vast Upper Peninsula
for possible mine development. The activity suggests the potential revival of
an industry that defined the region’s economy and culture for more than
a century - beginning in the mid-1800s - before gradually fading because of
higher operating costs and competition.
Dozens of mines once dotted the peninsula’s central and western sections.
All that remain are two Cliffs Natural Resources iron ore operations in Marquette
County.
“
There is definitely a potential for resurgence in mining in the U.P., but to
what degree I don’t know,” said Jon Cherry, a project manager for
Kennecott Minerals Co., which plans a nickel and copper mine in Marquette County. “The
low-hanging fruit, the easily identifiable and developed ore bodies are gone.
It’s harder and more expensive to develop what remains.”
Quigley agreed, saying the ore body his group is targeting is a rarity. Although
it extends perhaps 1,500 feet down, significant parts are near the surface
and one outcrop literally pokes through.
“
It’s a mystery why this wasn’t discovered sooner,” he said.
Yet even the possibility of a return to boom times is exciting some residents
and worrying others in the peninsula. Its struggling economy has long been
tied to extractive industries such as mining and logging - and critics say
its landscape
bears scars from ecologically damaging practices.
“
I’m hoping we’ll be back in the mining business,” said Shea
McGrew, vice president for advancement at Michigan Technological University
in Houghton. Tech began as a mining school but dropped its undergraduate program
earlier this decade. The university is talking with industry representatives
about restarting it, McGrew said.
Ted Bornhorst, a geology professor and director of Michigan Tech’s Seaman
Mineral Museum, said it was too early to predict how extensive a mining comeback
could be.
“
How many more ore bodies are sitting there that we haven’t found yet is
the million-dollar question,” he said.
Other wild cards - for the short term, at least - are the economic downturn
and a steep drop in mineral prices, which had been rising until recently.
A resurgent mining industry also would encounter opposition from environmentalists,
who favor a green economy for the region built on tourism and sustainable use
of resources. They say mining would foul the U.P.’s sparkling rivers
and lakes, damage wildlife habitat and turn quiet forests into industrial zones.
“
Who’s going to want to come to a mining district to ski or hike or backpack
or snowmobile?” said Scott Bouma, a technical specialist for Save the
Wild U.P., an anti-mining group.
Especially worrisome to critics: The targeted minerals are sulfide ores,
which can generate sulfuric acid when exposed to air and water. Company officials
say their refined techniques can prevent the acidic drainage that has damaged
surface
and ground waters elsewhere. Skeptics don’t buy it.
“
Given that there hasn’t been a sulfide mine in the world that hasn’t
polluted, I don’t have a lot of confidence that they can do it here,” said
Michelle Halley, attorney for the National Wildlife Federation and the Yellow
Dog Watershed Preserve.
Those groups are battling Kennecott’s Eagle Project, the furthest along
of the would-be new mines in the Upper Peninsula. Company officials say it
could yield up to 300 million pounds of nickel and about 200 million pounds
of copper.
Toronto-based Orvana Minerals Corp. has leased mineral rights and is doing
environmental studies on 1,700 acres near Ironwood. A company official told
the Daily Globe
newspaper a copper mine could be operating there by 2013.
Meanwhile, Aquila has finished its Menominee County exploration and is preparing
to seek permits for what it dubs the Back 40 Project, Quigley said. But the
company may have to slow its timetable unless the economy rebounds in 2009,
he added.
That would be fine with opponents. Signs reading “Save Our Waters - Stop
the Mine” are planted in many driveways in the woodsy countryside.
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