PICK AN ISSUE, ANY ISSUE!

PICK AN ISSUE, ANY ISSUE! (Frazer Chronicle)

There are so many issues connected with the proposed iron mining operations in northern Wisconsin, you could take a day or two on each issue.  Water impact, land impact, human and animal habitat impact, local labor impact, taxes, area infrastructure impact and finally the length of the project and what happens when everything is said.....and done.

If the truth be known, mineral extraction agreements are unbelievably uncomplicated for such a complicated process. The licenses, the oversight, the water used, the earth that will be forever disrupted, and the property that will never be used again aren't addressed, just the length of the contract, possibly where buildings might be located, roads and such, and the fact that usually either party can vacate the agreement in a stated number of days, weeks or months.

Some of the land is owned by the mining company and much more is, or will be leased from local land owners. The mining company will pay taxes, purchase liability insurance and even provide security for the operations. Rest assured.....the property as it now appears will never be the same, after the first shovel of dirt is moved.....it will always resemble a scare or wound and no matter what the mining company might say, this is a fact.

Does northern Wisconsin need an iron mining company, would an iron mine produce jobs, should people in the area be excited about the possibilities, the answer is yes to each question. But people need to be aware of what mining companies are, all mining companies. They are.....each and every one, bottom line people, from the top to the very bottom, if it don't make money.....don't do it. Mining companies are their own worst enemy, they lie, cheat and will steal.

And mining companies never, never forget, if they come across a mineral deposit, they will ultimately get it out of the ground, even if it takes fifty, sixty or a hundred years, they never forget, and never quite. They are like an animal that needs to be fed 24-7.

Old time miners used to say that mine companies would come to town with "bags full of money, and leave after they'd used up the land, leaving nothing but holes that took their young children." In the old days, a mining company would simply leave after the ore had been extracted from the mine, leaving the shaft to fill with water, leaving subsiding ground to fill with water, making a swimming hole that kids used and some drowned, not a real smart thing for the mine companies to do.

Local roads and rail service would differently need an upgrade and a whole new array of support business would be necessary. To streamline any sort of licencing process, which has already been done, might have already put much in jeopardy.

In the old days, mining companies built schools, hospitals and health clinics for the communities that they worked in, mostly for themselves and their workers, but also for the community. It was  good public relations, a good  business move and accomplished a huge amount of goodwill within the community, "even today, after more then a hundred sixty years,  Marquette, Michigan is tied to it's mine company."

Mining companies have moved rivers, obliterated creeks, wiped parts or whole lakes away and made 500 foot high waste rock piles that, during a wind can produce sand that will take the paint right off your house. The solution.....the company paints the houses every 5 or so years, thank you very much. But what happens to the houses and buildings when the mining company is gone, will there be a "paint fund" established.....I don't think so.

Indulge me for just a moment longer and I'll shut up.....for today, how many locals have the expertise that it has to take to operate  the computer, and the huge earth moving equipment that is necessary to operate a modern open pit iron mine today?  How many of the people that are making the decisions to allow iron mining in norther Wisconsin have even seen what an open pit mining operation looks like, or the equipment it takes to move things around.

Iron mining in Minnesota and Michigan does subscribe to the "bigger is better" attitude, there is no other way around it. The Great Lakes, or Lake Superior iron mining region was the United States and the world's most robust producer of iron ore from the 1890's until the early 1960's. Michigan, Wisconsin and then Minnesota made up this area, and Wisconsin is no stranger to iron mine activity. At one time, the deepest shaft iron mine in the world was located on the Michigan, Wisconsin boarder in Montreal, Wisconsin.

The iron mines of Wisconsin have delivered hundreds of thousands of long ton or ore to not only to the United States, but the world. The pick and shovel, the steam, diesel and the gasoline engines and the grunts and groans of men working underground and above have been stilled for several decades.

With more then a century of mining history in Wisconsin, the jury is still out on whether there is a right or wrong way to pursue the "gray gold" of Wisconsin, but speeding up the process seems to me not to be the right way to do things.