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LOCAL POLITICS 42 E&MJ; • FEBRUARY 2018 www.e-mj.com They say all politics are local. In an almost perfect example of this, attempts to re-open Wisconsin to the min- ing of metals critical to the national econ- omy reveal that the cause will most likely be won or lost at the local level. For the record, the statehouse did its part. On December 11, 2017, Gov. Scott Walker signed Assembly Bill 499, aptly dubbed the Mining for America bill. The bill basically ended a de-facto moratorium on sulfide mining in the state by overturn- ing an almost 20-year-old law. In 1998, the state, with almost unanimous, bipar- tisan support, mandated that a mining company provide an example of another similar sulfide mine in the U.S. or Can- ada that had operated for a decade and was then reclaimed for a decade without pollution, specifically acid mine drainage pollution, before certain permits could be issued. The law was reputedly the tough- est of its kind in the country. And in De- cember, it was overturned with minimal debate and limited protests after moving through the government relatively quietly. The bill was introduced in mid-Sep- tember, where it was read to the house and then sent to committee. It spent roughly three weeks there, picking up a half-dozen amendments, and then went to a public feedback phase. From there, the amend- ments were adopted, it went to the rules committee and picked up a couple more amendments, which were subsequently adopted before it was passed by the house by a relatively wide margin. It spent rough- ly a week in the Senate, moving through the finance and organization committees, before being passed by a vote of 19-14. Two business days later, Walker signed it into law, declaring, "If there's anywhere in the world that should be able to conduct safe and environmentally sound mining, it should be the Badger State." Stateside business advocates will like- ly see the passage of the bill as yet an- other feather in Republican Walker's hat. In 2017 alone, the former presidential candidate cut the ribbon at the opening of Komatsu Mining Corp. headquarters in Milwaukee, and signed a contract with tech giant Foxconn, locking the latter into opening a 1,000-acre manufacturing complex near Mount Pleasant. The scis- sor work capped the acquisition of Joy Global by Komatsu Ltd., effective April 5, for roughly $3.7 billion. At the time, Komatsu said the buyout ensured the jobs of more than 10,000 Joy employees, many of which were present at the event and worked at the Milwaukee location. Similarly, the state's effort to grease the skids of economic growth in the min- ing sector in Wisconsin could be viewed as heroic by those in the sector if things pan out. After all, a few sizeable fingers of the Canadian Shield grip the northern region of the state. The shield, composed of igne- ous rock, is known as one of the richest ar- eas in the world in terms of ore, and many of the Canadian cities and towns built on it grew up around mines and their industry. Exploration dating back decades has uncovered four potentially economic de- posits in northern Wisconsin. The Crandon deposit, with an estimated 55 million tons of ore containing zinc, cop- per, lead, gold and silver, was discovered by Exxon near the city of Crandon in 1976, according to the state. The deposit is esti- mated to be 4,900 ft long by 2,200 ft deep and 100 ft wide. Permitting was attempt- ed over the decades, with the 550-acre property eventually being purchased by the Chippewa and Potawatomi tribes in 2003. The Lynne deposit, in Oneida County, with an estimated 5.6 million tons of re- coverable lead and silver ore, was discov- ered in 1990 by Noranda Exploration. The ore, which includes minor amounts of gold and copper, appears recoverable by open- pit mining, according to the state. Current- ly, the county owns the land. A company known as Tamerlane Ventures submitted a petition to the county to open the forest land to mineral leasing in 2009. The com- pany apparently went under last spring. South of that is the Bend Deposit, originally discovered and drilled in the 1980s and 1990s by the Jump River Joint Venture. The deposit, estimated by the state at 4.23 million tons of gold, copper and silver ore in two overlapping zones is located within the Chequamegon National Forest. The deposit is staked by Toronto-based Aquilla Resources, a com- pany primarily engaged in exploration. Aquilla described its Bend Project, acquired in 2011, as one of three it is working along the "mineral-rich Penokean Volcanic belt." It reported the site spans 5,560 acres and is estimated to contain 2.7 million metric tons (mt) "grading 2.4% copper, 1.4 grams per mt (g/mt) gold and 13.7 g/mt silver" in what it calls the copper zone; and 1.12 million mt "grading 4.7 g/t gold and 0.31% copper" in the gold zone. Highlights from drilling include samples yielding "18.4 meters (m) of 5.25 g/mt gold, including 2.9 m of 27.06 g/mt gold." Another related project worked by Aquilla is on the Reef deposit, located in Marathon County, Wisconsin. It was first officially explored by Noranda Explora- tion in the 1970s, and, according to the state, was estimated to contain "454,000 tons of high-grade gold reserves in scat- tered, shallow weathered sulfides and quartz breccias." Mining for America Becomes Local Politics State bill to end moratorium on sulfide mining prompts effort to clone development-thwarting ordinances By Jesse Morton, Technical Writer Above, Wisconsin Gov. Scott, center, cuts the ribbon at the ceremonial launch of Komatsu Mining Corp., located in Mil- waukee, in April 2017. By the end of the year, he would sign the bill reversing the state's moratorium on sulfide mining.