Michigan anti-mining referendum: Next year's news today

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is a hard place to make a buck even in the best of times. But a century ago the area was booming because of the many copper and iron mines. Just two mines remain.

But Kennecott Minerals Company wants to open a third one, a nickel and copper mine in the Yellow Dog Plains thirty miles west of Marquette, the U.P.'s largest city.

Environmentalists, who I believe have never supported a new mine, oppose this project.

And Marquette's Mining Journal reports that they have fired the first shot of what I believe will be a major story next year.

The proposal, which needs 304,000 signatures of registered voters to be put on the ballot for November 2010, would add restrictions to the state's law governing non-ferrous mining in an effort to protect water resources.

Duncan Campbell, treasurer of the Michigan Save Our Water Committee in Detroit, said his group is waging a David versus Goliath battle against mining company interests, but he anticipates a conservation outpouring of support not seen since the effort to establish Michigan's bottle return bill in the mid-1970s.

But opponents of the initiative, who say the "Mi Water" restrictions could effectively shut down a host of new non-ferrous mining projects and related economic development in the Upper Peninsula, plan to wage a battle too.

"We hope to assemble a broad-based group of people who recognize that foreclosing opportunities in mining and construction in the U.P. would be disastrous," said Jon LaSalle, chairman of the Citizens to Protect Michigan Jobs Committee. "We're about protecting jobs and not shutting off the U.P.'s future or hurting Michigan's recovery."

Michigan has the nation's highest unemployment rate.

If the referendum makes it on the ballot, the voice of U.P. residents will be a whisper. The Upper Peninsula comprises one-third of the area of the Great Lake State, but just three percent of its population.

Related Upper Peninsula Upventure posts:

A brief history of copper mining
Keweenaw National Historical Park, Quincy, Part One
Keweenaw National Historical Park, Calumet
Ishpeming and Iron Mining

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