Tension between DNR, mining company may indicate more conflict to come

Tensions between the Gogebic Taconite mining company and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources rose to new heights last week in a public dispute over how much regulatory authority remains in the agency’s hands under a 2013 law that rolled back environmental restrictions to make iron mining easier.

The company objected to a DNR research document that listed environmental hazards of mining, and it has sharply criticized the extent of agency questions about plans to dig up rock for testing.

But the dispute over what is allowed and what isn’t under the untested mining law may be a preview of what is to come when the company seeks state permission for an open pit mine that would stretch 4 1/2 miles long and 800 feet deep in the forested hills of Iron and Ashland counties.

“All of the tests and modeling we’ve done cost money,” said company spokesman Bob Seitz. “(Some studies cost) tens of thousands of dollars a crack. So this should be about what’s necessary and not what’s wanted to satisfy curiosity.”

DNR officials said they were a little puzzled by a strongly worded letter the company wrote saying the agency was going too far, but they will continue to ask questions that need asking to ensure that the environment is protected and to provide information to the public.

“I was surprised that they took it so hard,” said Ann Coakley, one of the DNR’s key managers for the mine project. “We will always be here with a smile and a ‘How can we help you?’”

Delays

Act 1 of 2013 rewrote the rules for iron mining by imposing deadlines for DNR reviews of permit applications. It also eliminated the need for a full environmental impact statement or a permit for bulk sampling.

But a bulk sampling plan — which will determine some of the machinery needed to extract the ore — is required. Seven months have passed since the company first submitted its initial plan.

Seitz said rounds and rounds of questions from the DNR have delayed the sampling operation. The deadline for deciding if the plan is complete has been extended each time the agency requested more information.

The back-and-forth is documented in letters between the company and the state that are posted on a DNR website. The letters show the longest delay came when the company waited until Nov. 25 to respond to questions the DNR posed on Aug. 13, said DNR project manager Larry Lynch.

Lynch said the initial sampling plan delivered too little detail, even under relaxed provisions of the new law.

Sen. Bob Jauch, a Democrat whose district includes the mine site, said the company is using “bullying” tactics.

“It isn’t the DNR’s fault that Gogebic wrote their first application in crayon and didn’t hire consultants until after filing it,” said Jauch, referring to the company’s original bulk sampling plan.

Gogebic Taconite’s tough tone will backfire if the DNR is forced to deny the company’s final mining permit because the company fails to provide needed data within the new law’s tightened timeline for decision by the state, Jauch said.

Seitz acknowledged that the company has caused some delays, but he said the more important problem is an overzealous DNR.

Requests refused

In a Jan. 8 letter to the DNR that was released last week, company engineer Tim Myers answered most of the DNR’s latest questions but said the law didn’t require him to provide all the information requested on topics including how hazardous sulphide and asbestos-like minerals would be identified and tested.

“The additional information requested in your December 20 letter goes far beyond any additional information that would be needed,” Myers said in the letter.

He described preliminary testing of small quantities of rock that he said found little if any potential for devastating acid drainage from sulfide. And he dismissed UW-Madison laboratory testing that found asbestiform grunerite in a rock from the site. The DNR maintains that the tests confirmed the presence of asbestiform minerals, which is associated with high cancer rates among mine workers. Myers said the tests aren’t valid because they weren’t done by “an experienced person who has compared thousands of fiber analyses.”

Myers refused a DNR request that as soon as bulk sampling is completed the company share documented results of testing to detect sulfides and asbestos-like fibers.

“GTAC will document its bulk sampling findings in any future required filings, such as the environmental impact report” required before a final mining permit is issued, Myers’ letter states. “No other advance filings of the results of the bulk sampling are required.”

Myers pointed out that the 2013 iron mining law eliminated the need for the company to obtain a permit for bulk sampling.

Scientific review

Seitz said a DNR review of scientific literature on iron mining showed bias by some in the agency because the report listed the potential hazards without waiting for the company to fully analyze the mine site.

DNR officials said the 103-page report was compiled by the agency’s science services bureau to brief regulators on peer-reviewed studies of mines. The report describes extensive testing and monitoring that can minimize or prevent damage, for example, from sulfuric acid runoff into streams and from dangerous mercury emissions into the air when ore is processed.

Seitz pointed to a report on the conservative Media Trackers website saying that one of the report’s nine authors, a Northland College geoscience professor, misidentified a rock sample from the mine site.

Tom Fitz has said he found asbestiform grunerite in several spots on the mine site, but last week he conceded he was partially wrong about one sample he sent to a lab at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Fitz said the lab manager told him the sample wasn’t grunerite.

But Fitz said the rocks he found all contain slender fibers that appear to be asbestiform material, which can occur in minerals other than grunerite that are found around iron deposits.

Fitz, the company and the DNR agree on one thing: More laboratory testing is needed to determine if significant quantities of the fibers are present.

But Seitz and Sen. Tom Tiffany, a Hazelhurst Republican who has championed legislation to help Gogebic Taconite, said Fitz’s involvement with the DNR review of mining research shows the report is biased.

Tiffany said he viewed Gogebic Taconite’s frustration with the DNR as justified. But he said strong disagreements were part of the normal give and take in mine permitting.