DEQ holds hearing on Copperwood permit

By RICHARD JENKINS

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Ironwood - The public had a chance to express its opinions on Highland Copper's effort to develop a mine in northern Gogebic County at a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality public hearing Tuesday, with most speakers expressing support for the project.

The hearing, held at Gogebic Community College, was a required part of the process to obtain a MDEQ permit for the company's Copperwood Project near Lake Superior in Ironwood and Wakefield townships.

The permit would allow the company to impact wetlands and streams on the site, as well as take water from Lake Superior.

The company's previous five-year permit expired in February, said DEQ environmental quality analyst James Caron.

"There is no extending of that permit, it's good for five years. So they have to go through the process," Caron told the Daily Globe after the hearing. "Which means if a permit were granted and if all of the activities associated with that permit were not undertaken in five years, they'd have to reapply for what wasn't done again."

Prior to the hearing, company officials provided an overview of the company's plans and gave additional details on the project and differences with past efforts to develop a site.

Highland CEO Denis Miville-Deschenes told the audience the importance of the community buying into the project, which he referred to as "the social license to operate."

"Everybody wants (the license), mining or any other industry. There's no magic recipe, in the end you have to work hard to get it and you have to work harder to keep it," Miville-Deschenes said, adding listening to the community was often more important that simply keeping them informed of plans.

Copperwood's general manager, Sylvain Collard, discussed the specifics of the project.

Collard said there were several differences between Highland's plan and the one Orvana Copper - the company attempting to mine the land prior to Highland - submitted in 2012.

Along with changes to the ventilation plan and the addition of a stockpile to the site's design, Collard said several changes result in less impact to the property's wetlands.

These include moving the location of the processing plant to make it more flexible for vehicle access and changing the route of the access road on the property.

These changes mean the planned design would impact 57.84 acres, rather than the 58.11 acres allowed to be impacted under the previous permit.

Collard said the company would be creating new wetlands elsewhere on the property and working with Gogebic County to establish conservation easements elsewhere to mitigate the damage to wetlands.

Along with the impact on wetlands, the site plan calls for abandoning 16,557 lineal feet of stream channel on the site, while 12,460 lineal feet would be constructed to relocate streams.

Jeff King, who has been consulting as a wetland specialist for the Copperwood development, said many of the property's streams are the result of beavers or precipitation draining directly into the lake and don't serve as tributaries to other rivers and streams in the area.

The other change regards the use of water from Lake Superior at the mine site. While the company's plan called for pumping 500 gallons-per-minute - which translates to 720,000 gallons in a 24-hour period - Collard said this was much less than the previous plan, which would have required over 5 million gallons per 24 hours.

He explained the new plan recycled much of the water, requiring less be taken from the lake.

While the plan involves removing 7,710 cubic yards of material from the lake bed to install the 18-inch pipe and the subsequent installation of riprap, Copperwood officials said there should be no impact on the lake once the pipe is installed.

"We're hoping the rock that is being placed in there, this riprap, will actually be an improvement to the habitat associated with Lake Superior," King said. "Albeit there will be impacts (to the lake) during construction - which will need to be carefully monitored to make sure we're minimizing the impacts during construction - after construction you won't know anything is there. It will be a half-mile out into the lake."

A number of the area's elected officials and residents spoke in favor of the project, with many talking about the potential jobs and benefits a new mine could bring to the area.

"We have one of the most beautiful areas of the U.P. and we appreciate the environmental concern demonstrated here tonight," Ironwood Township Supervisor Steve Boyd said. "Highland Copper has worked to address all environmental issues we've had and they've acted to preserve the uniqueness of our area. We believe the Copperwood mine will not only meet all environmental issues but also meet the public interest, in terms of both needed economic development and protecting our environmental heritage."

Chuck Brumleve, who spoke on behalf of Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, expressed concern about some of the parts of plan - including the inclusion of a tailings dump.

"This tailings pile would be viewed from Lake of the Clouds in (the) Porcupine Mountains, from your various ski hills here. It will become a very prominent topographic feature, not necessarily a very good one," Brumleve said. He also expressed concern about potential pollution from the tailings leaching into the surrounding soil and water if the earth covering the pile eroded.

He said he and the KBIC weren't against mining, but wanted to see it be done in an environmentally responsible manner.

"You can be in favor of a mine - the mine - and still be environmentally responsible, involved and even be activists," Brumleve said. "Read the mining company's plans, do a little research and ask lots of questions. We all want a mine but we don't want environmental hazards."

Brumleve said he sees any disagreement on the plan as the result of long-term versus short-term thinking, telling the Daily Globe Native Americans like to think in terms of seven generations and the proposed 11-year lifespan of the mine is much shorter than that.

The DEQ is still accepting written comments on the Copperwood application through the end-of-business July 26.