Contact: Tom Stolp, Field Director
Office: (715) 835-4248, Cell: (715) 225-3344
tom@conservationvoters.org
Since its introduction, the case to scrap AB 426, the Assembly mining bill, has been made repeatedly and with great reason. Yet, this bill that seeks to rewrite our laws for the benefit of special interests at the expense of Wisconsin families is still being considered by Wisconsin legislators. Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters has introduced the “Scrap the Open-Pit Mining Bill Series,” a regular report of the countless reasons why legislators must scrap AB 426.
From the Scrap the Open-Pit Mining Bill Series—
Part X: Open-Pit Mining Wreaks Havoc with Wetlands and Flood Insurance
A poll from just last weekend found that 69% of Wisconsin voters oppose weakening Wisconsin’s wetlands law. It also found that an overwhelming number of voters who consider themselves “independent” oppose it by a 49 point margin.1
Yet, the open-pit mining bill left no protection “unturned” in paving the way for an out-of-state mining company to build a 5,000 acre open-pit mine in Iron and Ashland Counties amidst 16,000 acres of wetlands. The wetland rollbacks are so severe that 16,000 Wisconsin homeowners are at risk of losing their flood insurance as a result. In rushing to do everything to the mining companies’ specifications, mine backers in the state Assembly exempted mining companies from floodplain zoning requirements. As a result, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has warned lawmakers that unless the bill is altered, 16,000 Wisconsin property owners will lose their flood insurance.2
To many in the area of the mine, the wetlands mean even more than protection against flooding. To the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, these wetlands are a way of life.
The proposed mining area encompasses a large amount of the headwaters of the Bad River watershed, which supports the 16,000-acre Kakagon-Bad River Sloughs, which is the largest undeveloped wetland complex in the upper Great Lakes. The Sloughs have cultural significance to the Bad Rive tribe – they support the largest natural wild rice bed in the Great Lakes basin and tribe members have harvested wild rice there for centuries.3
The drafters of this legislation would have us believe that there’s no cause for concern because there will be no “net losses” to wetlands thanks to a practice known as “wetlands mitigation.”
But here’s the thing about wetlands mitigation.
It doesn’t work.
Typically, as it does in AB 426, wetlands mitigation requires that there be no “net losses” of wetlands – statewide. So even if the restoration of a destroyed wetland happened 350 miles away, the wetlands mitigation standard is satisfied. What if the rest of the world operated on the same proposition?
It would be like going in for heart surgery and waking up to find your heart sewn to the bottom of your foot. Sure, there’s no “net loss” of your heart, but don’t you think everything would work a whole lot better if your heart was back where it was supposed to be?
A biological system like a wetland only works when it’s left intact, but under AB 426, the largest wetland complex in the upper Great Lakes could be spoiled, so long as the company finds some wetland area somewhere in Wisconsin to shore up. This means that crucial habitat to endangered and threatened species such as trumpeter swans and bald eagles could be relocated by hundreds of miles. (Perhaps the Walker administration could create a job by employing someone to make sure the bald eagles and trumpeter swans know about the new location of the wetlands they should visit?)
To bungle legislation so badly that you threaten 16,000 homes with losing flood insurance, and to try to mitigate wetland destruction in Iron County with a wetland restoration in Milwaukee County doesn’t show a lot of brains.
Laying waste to centuries old cultural traditions of native peoples smacks of something worse…no heart.
1. http://conservationvoters.org/images/pdf/wisconsinpollresults1.pdf
2. http://lacrossetribune.com/news/doyle-mining-bill-may-put-flood-insurance-in-danger/article_8498ead0-5472-11e1-a067-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1mzJO4W8N
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Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to electing conservation leaders, holding decision makers accountable and encouraging lawmakers to champion conservation policies that effectively protect Wisconsin’s public health and natural resources.
