What a way to start the New Year! Our petition calling for the halt of the atrocious Copperwood project has officially passed 10,000 signatures, with no signs of slowing down— that's more than the populations of Ironwood, Bessemer, and Wakefield combined! Those signatures come from folks just like you who recognize that Lake Superior, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness, and the North Country Trail hold tremendous collective value which transcends any individual interest or profit motive.
First thing's first: we invite you to watch our new video, which elaborates many potential technical problems with Highland Copper's plans.
Now, onto our next COLLECTIVE ACTION..
In celebration of this amazing milestone, we are organizing a mass outreach effort to Governor Whitmer. Contacted the Governor already? Let’s do it again! This is our most important action yet, and we are asking for 100% participation. Whether or not you are a Michigan resident, we all deserve to have our voices heard. Please express your thoughts in your own words, but to get you started, here‘s a reminder of our two main points:
1) Mining and Wilderness are simply not compatible.
Porcupine Mountains State Park is the largest designated Wilderness Area in mainland Michigan— and in the 21st century, is there anything scarcer than access to pristine Wilderness? We come to the Porkies to hike and forage, to fish and hunt, to stargaze and sit in silence beneath old growth hemlocks, and so much more. But this list doesn't begin to capture the true importance of outdoor recreation in our lives: for many, finding a moment of peace in Nature is deeply meaningful experience, even spiritual.
Unfortunately, although Copperwood would be on private property, so many of its influences would radiate beyond map lines: light pollution, noise pollution, air pollution, water pollution, subterranean blasting, and heavy industrial traffic. It is unthinkable that such a sensory onslaught would not greatly degrade the Wilderness experience of those at the Park, as well as the hikers of the North Country Trail.
2) Copperwood would be the closest sulfide mine to Lake Superior in history.
Copper sulfide mines always contaminate, and though the ways are many, one of our chief concerns is the construction of a 323-acre mine waste containment facility, erected at the juncture of streams rerouted into unstable 90-degree angles, on topography sloping towards Lake Superior. Remember that at best only 1.5% of what comes out of the ground will be copper, and everything else will be heavy metal-laden, sulfide-bearing waste, comprising 50+ million tons in total, in unprecedented proximity to the largest freshwater lake on the planet.
Tailings dams are far from invincible— the first dam in this video was classified as a "low-risk structure“; the second dam was designed and constructed by experts at the top of the field in Canada and complied with all environmental regulations. What do these two dams have in common? They both crumbled, releasing a flood of toxic tailings sludge many miles from the point of origin.
The Governor says she‘s serious about climate change. Well, as we come to live on a hotter, drier planet, Lake Superior represents not just the most important resource in Michigan, but easily in the entire continent. How then can we allow such a threatening project to move forward, especially in the hands of a company which already has a history of violating permits?
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For a full breakdown of our concerns regarding Highland Copper's plans, please see this new video, released just last week. The main point is this: sometimes, regulations are not enough. Sometimes, it’s sound judgment which is more important, and Copperwood is simply the wrong project at the wrong place in the wrong hands.
Conclude your message by asking the Governor to file an official petition for review of the Copperwood project.
More detailed strategies will be explored later— for now, our main goal is to make sure the Governor feels the force of our stomping boots and hears the solidarity behind this message: the true heritage of the Upper Peninsula is not mining, but the incredible gift of Wilderness and Lake Superior. The U.P. still has what the rest of the Midwest has lost— will she help us protect it, or won’t she?
Reach out by phone, mail, online form, or all of the above!
Phone: 517-335-7858
Mail: Governor Whitmer
P.O. Box 30013
Lansing, Michigan 48909