Who is the Devil in God’s Country?
Every September, a “Perogi Fest” is held at a cottage overlooking the beautiful Menominee River west of Stephenson in the Upper Peninsula. Our gathering is named for a Latvian treat of diced onions and ham or bacon baked inside a small roll. Perogis disappear by the dozens with steaming soup and home-baked cookies. We share hearty hugs and hot coffee. A fire in the woodstove offsets the chill from long walks on riverbank trails fragrant with autumn’s potpourri of cedar and birch, poplar and pine. This is God’s Country and the handiwork of Spirit is without question.
Signage enroute to Shakey Lakes near where the Aquila open mine is opening, speak to the different viewpoints that have caused hard feelings.
What is in question, however, is the future of this beloved landscape. The Devil has come to God’s Country in the form of open-air mining. In bedrock, along the river, as in more than a dozen U.P. locations and in Minnesota, deposits of nickel, gold, zinc, and silver have been found. Foreign firms, mostly Canadian, are vying to control the mining of these metals, fueling dissention, distrust, and confusion.
Autumn in the U.P. has its own special beauty. This late October scene is from an area where pike move through a culvert every spring to spawn in the shelter of the marshland.
Mining releases poisonous sulfuric acid when sulfide ore is exposed to air and water. The crushed rock is processed with cyanide and other toxic chemicals. Tailings and contaminated water become toxic lakes in leaching, poisonous pits.
Would it matter to you if this popular destination in the U.P. was sullied by massive amounts of oil? Sulfuric acid? Human waste?
What are you doing to protect these sacred places?
To hear mining spokespeople and company-wooed “authorities,” little harm is done to the environment. The “footprint” is small, they insist, despite the proof in their filthy tracks left elsewhere, along with lawsuits stemming from violations, misrepresentations, elevated cancers and a lost way of life. The gullible and the vulnerable disregard the evidence as the carrot of temporary, decent-paying jobs is dangled by proponents (aka those who prosper). Those who say “no” are castigated as anti-community tree-huggers. Money changes hands, rhetoric is spewed, permits are signed, and the devastation begins. Some take their money and run to pristine places. Other have jobs for a few years and are left with a wasteland. What once was, the real treasure in God’s Country, will never be again.
Aquila Resources, a Canadian company, is opening its open-pit sulfide mine, known as the “Back Forty Project” beside the Menominee River. Even as I understand people need work, I beg to know -- at what long-term cost? There can never be enough money to restore the earth, air, water and health. Steve Jobs for all his wealth, could not save himself and in a twisted irony, helped to invent computers and cell phones that require minerals to make and when discarded, poison the environment in landfills or in salvage yards where the poor use toxic chemicals to once again “mine” minerals from them. It is a vicious, horrific cycle that we have the power to stop, but don’t. Wise recycling has the potential to create jobs and protect the environment at the same time.
Our lives depend not on cell phones and computers but on safe air, water and land. Yet, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and elected officials support mining and allow billions of gallons of putrid waste to be pumped into the Great Lakes. Our “leaders” allow the mining industry to escape severance taxes that could generate millions of dollars. Why? Power, politics, and profit. What would happen if those who support environmental destruction were required to build their homes, drill their wells, and raise their children on the “footprint” they have created?
Our fast-paced, self-absorbed lifestyles have created a sense of entitlement and spiritual alienation from the earth. Too many do not rethink, repair, reuse, or recycle and in the process, the earth cannot be renewed. I am reminded of the words of John Sawhill, “In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy.”
Who, then, is the Devil in God’s Country?
Jan Corey Arnett©2011