GreenLight Wisconsin (GLW) has begun exploration at the Bend site on the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest. GLW has contracted with a company called Taconite Drilling that drilled exploration boreholes for a GLW subsidiary in the Town of Schoepke in Oneida County in 2020. Allies within the statewide anti-mining network are planning to monitor the drilling as much as possible during GLW’s multi-week drilling effort.
This round of drilling by GLW on the National Forest is for 8 boreholes on a 40-acre parcel known as the Soo Line 40 where the surface is public land but the minerals are owned by the railroad company Canadian Pacific Railway. WI DNR has permitting authority over both the minerals and surface so the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) basically rubber-stamped approvals for the surface impacts despite also having authority over the surface. This drilling did not require a federal prospecting permit from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) since the minerals are privately owned.
The Lac du Flambeau Tribe petitioned the state earlier this year for a contested case hearing over the state’s failure to require an industrial wastewater permit for the drilling. The state applied a less-protective general storm water permit instead. The petition was recently denied but the Tribe continues to challenge the state and the decision is under judicial review.
There is a second round of exploration (15 more holes) by GLW proposed for this fall and winter at the site including in wetlands adjacent to the North Fork of the Yellow River. Unlike on the Soo Line 40 parcel, the surface and minerals are both owned by the public with USFS control of surface and BLM control of minerals. This requires a prospecting permit from BLM and approval from the USFS for impact to the surface.
We recently filed joint comments to the USFS about this drilling along with Wisconsin’s GreenFire, the River Alliance, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center. The comments focus on the need for the USFS to conduct more rigorous analysis of the impacts due to the threats to old-growth forest, wetlands, the river, and cultural sites along with the need to dispose of all drilling off-site to avoid threats to groundwater. See comments linked at the bottom of this blog.
This drilling will also require state of WI approvals but no formal permitting effort by GLW has started to date. We will alert Wisconsin Chapter members when the company gives notice to the state. We are paying closer attention to GLW’s efforts more than we have for past mining exploration.
What is different about this company is that it has targeted two known metallic sulfide deposits (Bend and Reef) despite previous companies abandoning them as uneconomic. GLW is also targeting several anomalies or occurrences that other companies simply didn’t bother to drill. GLW has a dubious business plan that depends on developing more than one of these deposits but also building a central mill and processing facility somewhere in the state but not on the site of one the current targets. Two targets for drilling in the future are in the headwaters of and adjacent to the Wolf River in Oneida County and near the former Crandon proposal that was bitterly opposed due to potential impacts to both Mole Lake’s rice waters and the Wolf.
Comments:
environmentalorganizationcomment-appendix.pdf