Protest Sulfide Mining and the Law Firm that Profits from It

July 11 – Noon

5/3rd Building (111 Lyon St)

Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Join Coaster Brook Earth First! for a protest at the offices of Warner, Norcross, and Judd, LLP in downtown Grand Rapids. The law firm is providing legal counsel to Kennecott Minerals, a company seeking to open a controversial sulfide mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Mining in sulfide-rich areas produces acid mine drainage–sulfuric acid that can leak into nearby wells, streams, and lakes. Mining on the Yellow Dog Plains could alter water quality and flow, devastating this fragile eco-system and threatening the health of various waterways.

Help Promote the Protest:

Full Size Poster

Quarter Sheet Handout

Tabling at the Water Festival

On Saturday, Coaster Brook Earth First! tabled at the Grand Rapids Water Festival. Throughout the day we distributed information to folks about the dangers of the Eagle Project sulfide mine and how they can get involved in efforts aimed at stopping the mine.

Grand Rapids Press: Save the Trout

On Saturday, The Grand Rapids Press’ blog reported on Coaster Brook Earth First! and our tabling at Festival of the Arts in downtown Grand Rapids:

When 21-year-old Ryan Brady donned a fish costume Saturday afternoon, it was more than an in-the-spirit-of-Festival gesture. He and fellow members of a local Earth First chapter used the event to spread its message about a subject that may have seemed obscure to some Festival-goers: a proposed sulfide mine in the Upper Peninsula that would threaten a coaster brook trout population.

Hence, the costume.

Fellow member Richard Johnson, 23, of Grand Rapids, said the group, set up on a sidewalk near Ottawa Avenue and Lyon Street, had been getting positive responses.

“Nobody’s really pro-sulfide mining,” Johnson said.

Video: The Fight against Sulfide Mining is not Over!

No Sulfide Mining!

Mining in sulfide-rich areas produces acid mine drainage–sulfuric acid that can leak into nearby wells, streams, and lakes… Five streams and rivers that empty into Lake Superior originate on the Yellow Dog Plains… Kennecott Minerals wants to carve the mine out from underneath the Salmon Trout River and its aquifer… The Salmon Trout River houses the last remaining run of native coaster brook trout along the entire south shore of Lake Superior… Mining on the Yellow Dog Plains could alter water quality and flow, devastating this fragile population and threatening the health of various waterways… The Department of Environmental Quality has given Kennecott approval for the mine…