Advocates skeptical of Cleveland-Cliffs’ waste rock expansion plan for Tilden Mine
TILDEN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WJMN) — Environmental advocates voiced concern over Cleveland-Cliffs’ plan to expand the Tilden Mine site during a public hearing hosted by the Department of Energy, Great Lakes and Environment Wednesday night.
The expansion would deposit over 540,000,000 long tons of waste rock at least partly outside of the existing boundaries of the mine in order to continue its plan to extend the life of the mine.
The expansion would impact 303 acres northwest of Tilden Mine, affecting local wetlands and streams, including Ely Creek. According to EGLE, the current plan would permanently fill 32.4 acres of emergent wetland, 19.2 acres of forested wetland, and 26.3 acres of scrub-shrub wetlands.
Storing the waste rock on the wetlands would also permanently fill over 4,600 linear feet of headwater streams in the Escanaba River Watershed, but CCI is also proposing to restore over 12,000 linear feet of stream offsite but in the same watershed.
The public meeting consisted of a presentation, Q & A session, and public comment period. The theme of several questions focused on possible alternatives to the current plan, including why the mine couldn’t use any land on the inactive Empire Mine property.
“Any time you’ve got a project where you’re basically looking for an area to to store material, the it’s an obvious question is ‘why can’t you do it somewhere else?’,” said Ryan McCone with EGLE. “We do ask those questions quite, quite frequently. The the matter at hand has to do with whether or not the until the mine company can be profitable is if it’s if it’s worth the investment and moving them to that bar or if that would basically make it a feasible project from a financial standpoint.”
Another question submitted asked “doesn’t three the 303 administrative code make it clear that additional alternatives can be considered and economics are not the only or primary consideration In Part 301?”
McCone responded, “Yeah, economics is definitely not the only or even the primary consideration under 301 or 303. That is correct. And it’s part of the current application. The documents vetted include, I believe, at least six different alternatives that were considered and provides the kind of positives, negatives or cost benefits.”
Other participants asked how the existence of a nesting pair of bald eagles on the proposed waste rock site could prevent the permit from being issued.
During public comment several advocates and leaders of local environmentalist groups spoke out against the expansion. Kathleen Heideman, a board member of the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition said this:
My name’s Kathleen Heitman. I’m a resident of Marquette County and a board member of Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition. In reviewing this permit thoroughly, I believe Tilden’s alternatives analysis is inadequate because they assume that project is in the public good. They discuss economic benefits but fail to estimate the value of wetlands and streams that would be destroyed under the permit. This project is not a wetland project and it fails to demonstrate that all of the alternatives have been investigated.
The Tilden Mine stockpile expansion endangers wetlands, streams, wildlife that depend on these ecosystems, water quality and long term quality of life for the surrounding residents. The wetland impacts are truly massive. This mine is asking to destroy 77.9 acres of wetlands, nearly a mile of first order streams and historic beaver ponds and 300 acres of wild land buried under waste rock.
No serious consideration was given to the cumulative environmental impacts of this environmental debt that has been growing larger for decades with the cumulative environmental impact so large, you can see it from the International Space Station.
If you read through the Tilden permit application and you didn’t know anything about the project area, you’d reach the conclusion that Ely Creek is an eyesore, a little logged wasteland with poor water quality and no value, or just a useless swamp.
Cliffs wants the regulator to assume that all the wetland and stream impacts are necessary and unavoidable, and they claim that no special plants or wildlife are threatened—although they didn’t actually look for them—and there are no endangered species of state concern to be harmed. The best thing to do from their purely economic point of view is bury the wetlands under a mountain of waste rock.
Those who actually know the area realize that Ely Creek is a designated trout stream, Grass Lake and Tilden Pond are historic beaver ponds. The application fails to acknowledge the value of beavers as a keystone species, which have been engineering this area for generations. The applicant says, is no baseline data for the project area and does not mention a book by Lewis Henry Morgan called The American Beaver in his works, published in 1868, which offers a rare baseline study of the Ely Creek and Grass Lake ecosystem, complete with maps and diagrams prior to iron mining in 1868.
There is an occupied eagle nest in the Tilden Mine Stockpile expansion, and the project area is frequented by wolves. Cliffs to request to destroy wetlands in streams. Here is part of a larger, unacknowledged pattern for too long. They have been operating operating iron mines 175 years, but did not include the comprehensive environmental impact study in their permit.
Kathleen Heideman
Local 3 reached out to EGLE Environmental Quality Analyst Hunter King for additional information.
King tells us that no permitting decision by EGLE has yet been made, and that the public comment period is still open until March 9. Then other federal agencies will give EGLE their opinion before April 1, with EGLE likely making a decision by April 13.
On the meeting, King said, “EGLE sincerely appreciates the public interest, comments, and concerns provided by participants in yesterday’s public hearing. We remain committed to making scientifically sound permitting decisions grounded in statute.”
You can find more information about Tilden Mine and the proposed expansion through EGLE’s MiEnviro Portal.
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