According to Mike Simonson reports, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is calling for an independent economic study of a proposed iron ore mine in their ceded territory of northern Wisconsin.

NorthStar Economics released a report in April that touted 700 permanent mining jobs and 3000 temporary construction jobs from a proposed iron ore mine in the Penokee Range. Trouble with that, Bad River attorney Mr Glenn Stoddard, Mr Gogebic Taconite paid for the study.

Mr Stoddard said “It’s slanted in favor of the mine and now we’re seeing even more inflated numbers being tossed around as far as jobs and so on. We feel that mining is a boom or bust enterprise and that it’s going to have negative effects even if it has some positive effects on the region.”

So Bad River Tribal Chairman Mr Mike Wiggins presented a letter to Governor Walker at the Governor Northern Economic Summit in Minoqua Tuesday. Mr Wiggins says his letter calls it “foolhardy” to base economic numbers on the NorthStar study, ignoring environmental concerns.

He said that “If there is a balance that they’re trying to find and they’re only utilizing skewed corporate-driven data essentially weighted to the economic side of the scale, that’s not doing the people of the Northland or the state of Wisconsin or my tribe any good.”

Mr Stoddard says it ignores jobs that would be threatened by a massive open pit mine inland from Lake Superior.

He said that “On the tourism jobs that are already there, on forestry, on fishing, just the attraction that the region has because of Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands and the pristine nature of that part of the state. This could have very negative effects.”

Mr Stoddard says whoever does the independent study must have no vested interest in its outcome, and shouldn’t be appointed by the Walker Administration which favors the mine.

(Sourced from www.superiortelegram.com)