Hater, I hope this Mine never happens. You're the loser. To the hater: I Googled what you wrote in your hatemail and came accross a bunch of things. Looks like 500 people and an Indian tribe think you're a loser as well.
November 3, 2016 - MENOMINEE RESERVATION, Wisc.— The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality this past Fall announced their draft mining permit approval. Public hearings were held. Upwards of five hundred persons attending a meeting at the local High School in Stephenson, MI. The Majority of persons allowed to speak were held to two minutes with the majority being against mining in this location.
Guy Reiter a tribal leader and spokesperson for the Menominee Nation said he has met with adjacent landowners to the Back Forty Project. Presently the river and mine are both off the reservation but the river and land around it remain central to Menominee culture. This meeting was to move ahead with plans of purchasing property adjacent to the site so that any Off-reservation challenges may be mitigated as this acquired land under treaty would become part of the Menominee Nation’s reservation under the treaty rights providing for religious and historic cultural sites. At one time the Menominee held title to 10 million acres across northern Michigan and Wisconsin before encroaching settlers and questionable deals forced them to 226,000 acres 60 miles northwest of Green Bay. The waters of the Menominee remain an important part of their culture.
Immediately downstream from property the Menominee Nation is looking to acquire is the proposed open-pit gold and zinc mine along the river on the Michigan side of the border. The mine's tailings will sit 150 feet from the river; acid leaching from waste ponds could contaminate groundwater, the river and its fish. The tribe's reservation is about 80 miles away, across the state border. But its cultural headwaters are along the Menominee River, where Aquila Resources Inc., hopes to start digging.
Tribes are sovereign nations under federal law. They deal with states and the feds in a government-to-government capacity. Certain aspects of preserving off-reservation resources have been clear: fishing or hunting rights, for example, on traditional lands, lakes and rivers, even in the off-season. But rights become opaque when disputes arise over aspects that aren’t readily tangible—especially the preservation of spiritual and historically relevant places.
This is about far more than preserving sacred burial mounds. These injustices degrade the quality of life for Native Americans nationwide, tainting their traditions, and saddling their populations with illness and poor health. “Sometimes it’s litigation or just working with state and local government so they’re fully educated about tribal rights,” he says. “In permitting and development it’s important to recognize tribes’ rights to hunting and gathering and fishing … that means protecting streams and sacred objects.”
The most recent example of this revival of Native pride—and rights—is a bit of windswept prairie that has become the flashpoint for Native American voice and culture: The Standing Rock Sioux tribe's fight against the Dakota Access pipeline. The pipeline, aimed to carry crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken fields to existing pipe in Iowa, would span four states, pass under the Missouri River a half mile upstream from the tribe’s reservation, and impact burial grounds and other culturally important sites.
Tribal coalitions in the Pacific Northwest bringing the Native perspective into fisheries management; south-central U.S. tribal involvement in drought planning and climate change adaptation and the strong, unified tribal voice fighting for the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.
There are still many hurdles before shovels hit dirt—including a pending wetland permit which the land the tribe is in talks to acquire has some influence over. Should the acquisition of the adjacent property take place the Menominee Nation gains legal standing on both a State and Federal level without the need for a court to determine if the proposed mine falls within treaty rights or other agreements signed by the Federal government, the State government and the tribe.