Before and After of WI Iron Ore Mine

[Evasporque]

Google Maps Satellite Image links...
2 mile/inch

Between Mellen WI and Upson WI along Hwy 77
http://g.co/maps/w9q3a

Hibbing Minnesota Mature Active Iron Ore Mining operation on the same geology.
http://g.co/maps/sybtg


Please take the time look at the images and explore what is all entailed in a iron ore mining operation. It is pretty clear this is major impact.

I suggest legal eagles and protection groups look to international protections under the Great Lakes Compact and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement and Compact to stop this mine. I believe that the law traveling through WI legislature that loosens water protections will run afoul of the following binding agreement...other states or canadian provinces could potential sue and stop the mine if it is found that water protection laws were scuttled by Walker and the Republicans...it is VERY CLEAR that the location of this mine is WITHIN THE GREAT LAKES DRAINAGE BASIN if not STRADDLING the great lake divide.

http://www.cglg.org/projects/water/docs/12-13-05/Great_Lakes-St_Lawrence_River_Basin_Sustainable_Water_Resources_Agreement.pdf

[Scuba]

1. What's all our precious drinking water when Walker's backers can make a few bucks?

[Ed Suspicious]

2. Then Walker's backers can sell us bottled drinking water. That's a win for the Walkerites! n/t

[Brickbat]

3. Hold them strong on water protections and put in some punitive conditions if things go wrong. But

don't derail the project. That tailings basin at Hibbtac looks dire, but it actually looks a lot worse than it is. It's pink because of all the iron in the soil and water. Once left undisturbed, those tailings will be covered in saplings in five years. Much of the land around Hibbing that is now covered with trees once looked like that basin. Ore pits, when left, fill with water; some of the best trout fishing on Minnesota's Iron Range is in old ore pits. They're also great for pleasure crafting in summer or winter.

Watch them like hawks and punish them if they screw it up. Elect people to watch them. But don't think that an iron ore mine means total and complete environmental devastation.

ETA: Mr. Brickbat works in the iron ore industry, so I'm sympathetic to it. However, living where I do, I have to keep the environmental affects in mind as well. So far, I and many others think it's a fair trade. We have to remain vigilant, of course.

[Evasporque]

4. Post Iron Ore mining beauty is a GOP talking point...

Crosby MN, site of a Iron Ore mining for almost 100 years....key is the 100 years....

It takes minimum of fifty years to play a mine out....it takes another thirty years to reclaim the land....sure there is water, sure there is a new "recreation" area...

But at what cost...? For what g in...?

Crosby Minnesota....the area being touted as a ore mining success story...

http://g.co/maps/zvyt8

The question Wisconsinites need to ask themselves are they willing to replace one industry (tourism) with one that will have the landscape look like a alien planet for a two maybe three generations?

If you look at the Hibbing Tailings basin (the second one created) form the satellite pic you can tell they have had trouble containing it...and it is leaching out containments over time...increasing the size of the area of the basin....these mines grow...and as containments escape they claim more of the land to capture them...I am sure they are allowed eminent domain of surrounding lands to control runoff from tailings piles...

At the crosby site it appears the tailings basin (I assume to be NE and E of the pits...is covered in vegetation but is clearly not utilized for development...

Lets remember too... Crosby reclamation activities particular came about because of massive expenditures by the STATE and FEDERAL governments to cleanup these sites....which were essentially abandoned deep pit mines...the Wisconsin mine will not be deep pit...but total excavation....and will not make pretty deep lakes....they will be a massive alkaline basin like Hibbing....