Mining legislation allows company free rein. The mining bill approved by the state Senate Wednesday is a 21st-century version of the “Broad Form Deed” – a deed whose fine print allows the company to run roughshod over the landscape. The Broad Form Deed was used in West Virginia by mining companies to buy the right to develop an underground coal mine. The landowner was paid a small royalty and expected little interference with his farming operation. However, the fine print of the deed allowed the company to also “engage in such surface activities as are necessary for the mining operation.” For example, the mining company could cut the farmer’s trees because the timbers were needed to brace the roof of the mine tunnels. Likewise, the farmer’s fields could be used to pile the mine spoils, and a staging facility was designed for loading trucks. State and local governments, beholden to the mining companies, did nothing to warn small private landowners against signing Broad Form Deeds or help them recover collateral damages. In recent years, mountaintop coal mining has replaced underground mining. To get at the coal seam, the top of the mountain is simply shoved off or blown off to the detriment of everything below. Landowners and communities below are left to deal with the physical debris and the acid mine drainage. Mining companies still control the governments of Appalachia. After generations of intense mining, the area is the poorest in the nation Like the Broad Form Deed of West Virginia, the Wisconsin mining bill was written by a mining company. It was written by Gogebic Taconite – the company that intends to apply for a state permit to open a taconite mine in the Penokee Range south of Lake Superior. Until recently, such blatant conflict of interest would not have been tolerated in Wisconsin. However, this Legislature and this governor seem intent on providing a wide, thick and very red carpet for this particular company.
Like the Broad Form Deed, the mining bill has important fine print. Some administrative procedures, common to all natural resource regulations, would be specifically eliminated for mining cases. The proposed permitting process is less transparent, less objective and less subject to challenge than the existing law – a law that has no serious flaws and has been used to successfully permit a mine. Like mountaintop mining in West Virginia, taconite mining in the Penokees will require the removal of immense volumes of over-burden (glacial till and overlying bedrock). There is no economic alternative to the placement of that waste material in surface depressions near the site. Thus, the disposal sites will be wetlands, stream corridors and small lakes that ultimately drain into the Bad River and Lake Superior. Since some of the over-burden rocks contain sulfide minerals, some of the runoff will contain sulfuric acid – the same chemical treasure that has been bestowed upon the poor folk of West Virginia for generations. The West Virginia model is clear: 1) Mining laws are written by the mining industry. 2) The primary function of government, in relation to mining, is to ensure the profitability of mining as a means to create jobs. 3) Overzealous environmental professionals in state agencies are re-educated by their politically appointed bosses. 4) The process to obtain a state permit avoids open hearings in front of an impartial hearing examiner and thus avoids testimony from objective scientists. 5) Legal challenges are directed to a court likely to be sympathetic to the mining company. The letter of the mining bill is long and seems complex, but the spirit of the mining bill is simple and crystal clear. Thus, the public policy question is concise: Do the residents of the Penokees and the citizens of Wisconsin want West Virginia-style mining? Source: