Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
AN EMPLOYEE from Idea Drilling, of Virginia, Minn., checks a drill rig at one of 15 sites at the proposed iron mine near Upson, Wis., Thursday.
HURLEY - Gogebic Taconite continues to drill for core samples, as well as beginning the bulk sampling process, at the proposed iron ore mine site near Upson, Wis.
On Thursday, crews continued to drill, with a goal of 15 holes in total. Ten holes are in Iron County, and five are in Ashland County.
The process is similar to the rounds of drilling done last summer, but there are more holes this time.
According to Bob Seitz, G-Tac spokesman, the company is using two drilling rigs in different locations at the proposed mine site, and is drilling nearly double the amount of holes it did before.
Drilling began at the end of January and is expected to take "much longer," according to Seitz.
"It's going to take awhile. We've got a crew out there 24/7, working 12-hour shifts," he said.
At the mine site Thursday, employees from Idea Drilling, of Virginia, Minn., were getting samples from 1,200 feet in the ground. Holes are drilled at 45-degree angles and samples are collected inside a steel pipe.
The rig drills about four inches a minute and collects 10 feet of sample.
Sample is removed from the pipe, broken into smaller sections and placed in boxes. They are then transferred to a building, where they are organized, and cut in preparation for testing.
"The samples are cut in half length-wise, and then one of the halves is cut into quarters," Seitz said. "The samples are sent to a lab, where they grind it up, put it in a tube and simulate years of weathering. They test to see if something were to come out of the rock, whether sulfides, or if it were to oxidize. They do that until everything is leached out of the rock."
Testing can take more than six months.
The round of drilling is expected to fill G-Tac's storage facility. According to one employee, twice as many shelves will be required to handle all of the segments.
The company is also in the beginning stages of the bulk sampling process. Originally, G-Tac planned to begin collecting samples in June, but changed its plan to have a lesser impact on the environment.
According to Seitz, the company submitted a winter weather alternative for the plan, allowing it to use frozen roads, already in existence. Before submitting the alternative, the company had received its conditional use permit from Iron County to bulk sample, and was waiting word from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on a required stormwater permit. The DNR granted the bulk sampling permit Tuesday, and decided the stormwater permit no longer applied.
"We did get the stormwater permit, but we don't need it anymore," Seitz said. "The permit was mostly for creating side roads to the sites to avoid wetlands. But in the winter, everything is frozen, so we don't have to worry about it. We have snow packed the roads to make sure everything is frozen over and that the frost would go deep. The DNR seemed to like that, so our plan was accepted."
Bulk sampling will take place at three sites in Iron County. Two were originally used by U.S. Steel in the 1960s, and the third site will be along the existing roadway.
The process is scheduled to begin next week, and during this week, the company has hired contractors to clear the third location.
"While samples are collected at the first two sites, the third site will be chipped with an air hammer," Seitz said.
Samples will be brought out of the site onto a staging area, where on-road trucks will haul the samples to Minnesota for testing. The samples will be placed on road fabric to keep them separate from gravel or other substances while in the staging area.
"It's an eight-hour round trip to Minnesota, so we can only load samples in the morning," Seitz said. "It's going to be a long process."
The purpose of bulk sampling is to plan what types of machines will be used for the mine's mills and the process is expected to take a few weeks.
Seitz indicated that protestors of the project "have been quiet" during core drilling. He also said that it "feels good" to have the project continuing to move forward.
