No Mine at Mole Lake Ever!
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There was joy this spring in the Mole Lake Sokaogon (Sah-kah-gun) Chippewa community. Ending an almost thirty year war over proposed metallic sulphide mining the Mole Lake Tribe and the world’s largest mining company, Australian-based BHP-Billiton exchanged gifts and agreed to leave the minerals underground. Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network reports.
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Amid a pipe ceremony, some honor songs, a giveaway and a feast the Mole Lake Tribe retired the mortgage to BHP-Billiton for the proposed Crandon mine.
Sandy Rachel is the Mole Lake Sokaogon chairwoman. She says the tribe doesn’t plan to mine the several billion dollar ore body.
“Why is it important for our community to get that land? It is to keep it, to preserve it, and to take care of it. That’s always been our goal, to protect that land, and to protect our water.”
The proposed Crandon mine was about one mile upstream from the Mole Lake tribe’s ancestral wild rice beds. A metallic sulphide mine would have likely destroyed the tribe’s food supply.
But the tribe focused their spirituality on defending the land.
“We heard today from Fred that that drum was very important. Some of the songs on that drum and I noticed afterward one of the women was sharing water with people in the community. Tell us the importance the role of women in this fight against the mining company. Well, the role and woman is to protect the water. As you know when all of us are born we are born in a bag of water and that’s the beginning of life. It’s very important to our ancestors and our community.”
For their part, BHP Billiton, as a gesture of goodwill, gave back the tribe’s eight million dollar final mortgage payment as an endowment for the tribe.
Gibson Pierce, BHP-Billiton, manager for closed mines, explains.
“For our company it was the closing chapter in the Crandon mining project, we now believe we can exit this project knowing that we’ve left a plan in place that will offer sustainable development for the community.”
Gibson Pierce acknowledges that mining companies never achieved a “social license” to operate a mine in northeastern Wisconsin. But Gibson Pierce thinks his company BHP-Billiton’s gift to Mole Lake will help with future mining projects around the world.
“The web is an amazing tool. They may get a call from somebody in African or an NGO in Indonesia and they will ask questions and by doing this will build up trust, we believe they are going to give a positive response and at least listen to them. You may not agree with what they tell you, they have integrity, they will do what they say.”
Both Gibson Pierce and his colleague from BHP0-Billiton Paul Warner received Pendleton blankets from the tribe.
An anti-mining warrior from Mole Lake Tony Randall feels some gratitude to BHP-Billiton.
“I’m surprised they found some kind of light or hope, something to help us out they way they have. Really we were in a rock and a hard place and really without their help and what they’ve done for us today how do you thank’em for that.”
The tribe plans to use the endowment for education and revitalizing the Ojibwa language.
I’m Nick Vander Puy for the Superior Broadcast Network.