About that mine bill: Gogebic can make a mess and they aren’t accountable for cleaning it up

[Scuba]

http://www.bluecheddar.net/?p=18691

The excerpt below is from "Helwin in Milwaukee" and is prepared testimony to be given at the now-cancelled hearings on this bill. The article has much more information and is worth your time if you care about little things like clean drinking water.

This bill is all about good timing for Gogebic Taconite, not what is good for the people of Iron and Ashland counties, or the people of Wisconsin. Gogebic Taconite is not there to make jobs for people in the area. They are there to extract ore. They are there to make money for their shareholders.

They can give jobs to Wisconsin citizens (or more likely, unemployed taconite miners from Minnesota) that would be really nice. What they cannot be allowed to do is use the carrot of jobs to chip away at the rights of citizens to challenge or uphold mining methodology and importantly safety measures in place in their communities. If Goegebic Taconite’s mine can be safely operated and managed, it needs to be done so with the current protections in place and with citizen input. -Two things that this bill proposes to change.

We keep discussing “certainty for businesses.” My parents drink ground water out of a well. They need ”certainty” that they can still drink that water for years to come. They need ”certainty” that they will have a course of action to take should someone taint that water and make it unsafe. This goes for air quality, noise pollution, and other quality of life issues.

...

Iron County, with its history of mining, has the second highest unemployment rate in the state. And that observation doesn’t beg for mining to resume, it reflects a past involved with mining that has left us with an underprivileged present. That should make us demand a mining industry that makes life decent while they’re here and leaves us in a good place when they inevitably leave. We don’t have to race to a boom and invite a bust.

emphasis mine

[hue]

1. Thanks for posting this Scuba!! It's a shame these words won't be heard in testimony now!

The goal of moving the mining issue to the Finance Committee was to lambaste Gogebic's interests through without due process before the Repuke puppets fall. The altering and fast tracking of the course of this legislation shows that the oligarchy (Chris Cline for one) is uncertain/afraid they will not be able to rape Wisconsin as they wished. Someone is managing Scott Fitzgerald's moves and who ever that is wants to get the most out of Fitzgerald before he begins his criminal course. This is a demonstration of how the puppets of the oligarchy are manipulated and deemed expendable.

[Scuba]

2. You're right on all points. Thanks.