Environmental Degradation at Wisconsins Flambeau Mine A Cautionary - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Environmental Degradation at Wisconsin’s Flambeau Mine

‐ A Cautionary Tale for Michigan Regulators

Laura Gauger Duluth, MN October 2016

Credentials:

• Laura Gauger is a pharmacist by trade who was living in northwestern

Wisconsin in the 1990s when the Flambeau Mine was built near

• Ladysmith. She developed an interest in following developments at the

mine site and has done numerous open records requests of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) over the past 15 years to obtain official documents and environmental monitoring reports for the mine.

• Gauger co‐authored a 1200‐page book about the Flambeau Mine that

was published in 2007 and includes a detailed analysis of: (1) existing mining regulations impacting the project; and (2) how groundwater and surface water quality at the mine site fared under those regulations.

• She was also an official party to three separate legal actions involving

the Flambeau Mine, including a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit filed against the mine’s owner (Rio Tinto) in 2011 and concluded in 2014.

So what does the Flambeau Mine have to do with Aquila Resources’ Back Forty project?

Aquila and Flambeau consultant Stephen Donohue (Foth Infrastructure and Environment, Green Bay, WI) has been quoted as saying: “Flambeau was a very successful mining operation, and the two sites are very similar, so we’ve been able to use the engineering work done on Flambeau as a template for the Back Forty mine.”1

• 1. Aquila Resources, Sep 22, 2016 (https://www.facebook.com/AquilaResources/)

In addition, here’s what Mr. Donohue told the Wisconsin Senate Select Committee on Mining at a hearing in September 2012:

“Testing on groundwater around the Flambeau Mine site continues to show that groundwater is being protected at this project.”

Testimony posted online by Wisconsin Eye:

http://www.wiseye.org/Video‐Archive/Event‐Detail/evhdid/6623

*Stephen Donohue is a mining consultant at Foth Infrastructure & Environment of Green Bay, Wisconsin. He and his colleagues at Foth were involved in the permitting, construction, operations and reclamation of the Flambeau Mine. Other projects include Aquila Resources’ Back Forty project and Rio Tinto’s Eagle Mine in Michigan and PolyMet’s NorthMet project in Minnesota.

If Flambeau is to be used as a “template” for the Back Forty project, Michigan regulators and the public deserve to know the answer to these questions: What does the water quality data on file with the Wisconsin DNR for the Flambeau Mine really show? Were streams and groundwater reserves at the mine site protected?

First, consider this: Even if Mr. Donohue’s assertion about the water at Flambeau being protected were true, which it is not, comparing the Back Forty project to the Flambeau Mine is like comparing apples to oranges.

Parameter Flambeau 1, 2 Back Forty 3 Size of Mine Pit 32 acres Max depth = 225 ft 83 acres Max depth = 750 ft Ore Production 1.9 million tons 12.5 million tons Waste Rock Production 8.6 million tons 54 million tons Tailings generated from on‐site processing of ore There was no on‐site processing of ore at

• Flambeau. It was all

shipped to Canada for smelting, so there are no tailings at Flambeau 11.8 million tons over 7‐year life of mine Toxic tailings will be generated from two different processes and in the following amounts:

• 1.8 million tons from an oxide process
• 10 million tons from a flotation process
• 1. Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Flambeau Mine, Wisconsin DNR, Mar 1990, p. 5.
• 2. 1997 Backfilling Plan, Flambeau Mining Company, Mar 1997, p. ii.
• 3. Mining Permit Application for the Back Forty Project, Aquila Resources/Foth, Oct 2015, p. 4 and Table 5‐1.

Even if Flambeau were similar to the Back Forty project, Mr. Donohue’s assertion that the groundwater at Flambeau “is being protected” is false and misleading. Sure, there are some wells upgradient of backfilled mine pit that are clean, but not the wells that really matter – the ones in the line of flow from the backfilled pit to the Flambeau River.

Computer modeling for the Flambeau Mine supplied by Foth has proven to be very inaccurate in terms of predicting maximum levels of contaminants in the groundwater within the backfilled Flambeau Mine pit. Here are the numbers on file with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources:

• 1. Prediction of Groundwater Quality Downgradient of the Reclaimed Pit for the Kennecott Flambeau Project, Foth, Dec 1989, p. 28 (L‐30).
• 2. Flambeau Mining Company Annual Report, Jan 2016, Appendix A and Appendix B.

Contaminant Foth Prediction 1 Max Reported Level, to date, now that real data has started to come in 2 Manganese 550 mcg/l 42,000 mcg/l (76 times higher than Foth predicted) Iron 320 mcg/l 15,000 mcg/l (47 times higher than Foth predicted) Copper 14 mcg/l 810 mcg/l (58 times higher than Foth predicted) Sulfate 1,100 mg/l 2,400 mg/l (2 times higher than Foth predicted)

This schematic from a report on groundwater and surface water contamination at the Flambeau Mine site1 shows where the various monitoring wells are located. Please note that: ‐ the MW‐1013 nest is located within the backfilled mine pit, about 600 feet from the river; ‐ the MW‐1014 nest is located within the backfilled mine pit, about 2300 feet from the river; ‐ MW‐1000R and MW‐1000PR are located directly between the backfilled pit and Flambeau River, within 175 feet of the river.

Here’s a graph of what some of the Real Flambeau data

• n file with the Wisconsin DNR shows:

Manganese levels in groundwater at the Flambeau Mine are up to 180 times higher than they were before the mine was built and up to 75 times higher than predicted by Foth Engineering.

And it’s not just one well that has gone high on manganese. Nine of the eleven wells within the backfilled Flambeau pit and/or directly between the pit and Flambeau River have GREATLY exceeded the Foth prediction for manganese.

Is the well shown on the previous slide (MW‐1013B) the only well at the Flambeau Mine site with elevated manganese (Mn) levels?

• No. See the below table for a sampling of manganese levels recorded in

all 8 of the wells within the backfilled mine pit AND 2 wells between the pit and Flambeau River. Note: This is Rio Tinto’s own data.

And it’s not just Manganese that has gotten out of control in some of the wells at the Flambeau Mine site.

Sulfate levels in groundwater at the Flambeau Mine are up to 480 times higher than they were before the mine was built and up to 48 times higher than the accepted surface water standard for wild rice.

And it’s not just one well that has gone high on sulfate. As of March 2016, nine of the eleven wells within the backfilled Flambeau pit and/or directly between the pit and Flambeau River are exceeding the 5 mg/l baseline value for sulfate by at least 15 times.

IRON levels at Flambeau are also of concern.

Iron levels in groundwater at the Flambeau Mine are up to 300 times higher than they were before the mine was built and up to 45 times higher than predicted by Foth Engineering.

The Real data on file with the Wisconsin DNR also shows that Copper levels have shot up in some of the wells at Flambeau.

Copper levels in groundwater at the Flambeau Mine are up to 70 times higher than they were before the mine was built and up to 55 times higher than predicted by Foth Engineering.

Wells outside of the backfilled Flambeau Mine pit and within 175 feet of the Flambeau River have also gone high on pollutants.

Please see the following graphs.

Manganese Levels in Violation of Flambeau Mine Permit Standards

MW‐1000PR (a so‐called “Intervention Boundary Well” located directly between the backfilled mine pit and Flambeau River) has been in violation

• f the Flambeau Mine Permit standard

for manganese on a consistent basis ever since the pit was backfilled in 1997, exceeding the permit standard set for the intervention boundary (550 mcg/l) by up to 10 times. This well is located just 125 feet from the Flambeau River and, according to Rio Tinto, the direction of groundwater flow is toward the river, through fractured bedrock.

Manganese Levels in Violation of Flambeau Mine Permit Standards

MW‐1000R (a so‐called “Intervention Boundary Well” located directly between the backfilled mine pit and Flambeau River) has been in violation

• f the Flambeau Mine Permit standard

for manganese on a consistent basis ever since the well rebounded in 2010, exceeding the permit standard set for the intervention boundary (550 mcg/l) by up to 27 times. This well is located just 170 feet from the Flambeau River and, according to Rio Tinto, the direction of groundwater flow is toward the river, through fractured bedrock.

Statements made by Stephen Donohue that suggest the groundwater at Flambeau “is being protected” simply are not true.

But what about the Flambeau River and its tributaries?

Are they being impacted by the Flambeau Mine?

Flambeau Mine Permit Application, 1989:

“Under [expected] conditions, all of the groundwater flowing through the Type II waste rock in the reclaimed pit will exit the pit through the Precambrian rock in the river pillar and flow directly into the bed of the Flambeau River. Since this flow path is very short and occurs entirely within fractured crystalline rock, there will be little if any dispersion or retardation of the dissolved constituents in the groundwater. The dissolved constituents that will be added to the background crystalline groundwater by the Type II material in the pit will be copper, manganese, iron and sulfate. Since there will be no dispersion, dilution or retardation in the river pillar, the concentrations of these constituents in the groundwater leaving the pit will be the same as the concentrations entering the river bed.”

Here is what the owner of the Flambeau Mine told the public about the project site →→→

(This plaque was on display at the Flambeau Mine site during the mid‐1990s.)

Contrary to what the public was told, here is what Foth told the Wisconsin DNR in the Flambeau Mine Permit Application filed in 1989 → → →

Flambeau Mine during flood stage conditions in the Flambeau River (photo by Bob Olsgard, Sep, 1994).

Another complicating factor is this: The Flambeau Mine pit was dug to within just 150 feet of the Flambeau River. In 1994 the river experienced major flooding and came to within 20 horizontal feet and 4 vertical feet of spilling into the pit.

Data on file with the Wisconsin DNR clearly shows that monitoring wells between the Flambeau Mine pit and Flambeau River are highly polluted and in violation of mine permit standards (see graph shown earlier for MW‐ 1000PR). Yet, the DNR has not fined the company or required corrective

• action. When I questioned the DNR about this, they told me that, since no

impacts to the Flambeau River have been noted, corrective action was not needed. However, there is no comprehensive program in place to assess for river

• impacts. All the company does is report limited water quality data from a

single upstream monitoring location and one (sometimes two) downstream locations twice a year. Additionally:

• neither of the downstream sampling sites used by Foth is anywhere near the fractured

river pillar that separates the backfilled mine pit from the Flambeau River (see diagram

• n next slide); and
• nly limited sediment and biotic (macroinvertebrate/crayfish/walleye) sampling was

done by the company for only a short time, and that sampling has long since ceased.

It is also noteworthy that a tributary of the Flambeau River (Stream “C”) was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s list

• f “impaired waters,” effective April 2012,

due to high copper and zinc levels linked to the Flambeau Mine operation. This tributary was the subject of a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit that went to trial in May 2012. The U.S. District Court found the mine’s owner to be in violation of the Clean Water Act on numerous counts. But the decision was later overturned on a technicality. In its ruling 1, the Court of Appeals did not dispute that the tributary was polluted. Rather, the polluter was pardoned because the Wisconsin DNR had made a mistake by not requiring them to secure a federally‐ mandated permit that would have put limits on the amount of copper discharged to the stream.

• 1. United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Appeal Nos.

12‐2969 and 12‐3434, Document 52, Aug 15, 2013.

Source: Flambeau Mine Stipulation Monitoring Plan, FMC, Dec 2007.

Aerial photos provided by Foth belie what’s happening beneath the surface of the grassed‐over Flambeau Mine site and within its waters.

As 8‐term Rusk County Board Supervisor Roscoe Churchill of Ladysmith, Wisconsin noted, it’s “Just Grass Over a Grave”

In conclusion, the real facts and figures available from the Wisconsin DNR for the Flambeau Mine demonstrate the following: The public has been misled by industry representatives who claim the water at the Flambeau Mine site “is being protected.” Instead of Flambeau supporting the idea of moving forward with the Back Forty proposal, it proves the need for caution.