Says proposed mine would be heavily regulated

Vox Pop

First, a pop quiz just like you used to get back in high school when the teacher did not think you were completing your assignments from the day before. No cheating and going to the end of this article. How much of the earth’s atmosphere is comprised of the climate change/greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2)?

Vox Pop contributor Juliana Reimann from Madison (well south of Taylor County if I am reading the State map correctly) is blatantly incorrect in her assertion that the Flambeau mine at Ladysmith continues to leak poison a tributary of the Flambeau River for the past 25 years. I went to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources web site and specifically looked at the findings for the mine. Go to the tab marked Monitoring. First the tab states that, “Throughout the life of the Flambeau Mine an extensive environmental program was conducted.” The site goes on to further state that, “There were no exceedances of any effluent (treated wastewater) during the period of discharge.”

You can’t as much as shovel a half a cubic foot of dirt into a “wetland” without intense DNR scrutiny. So how is a project as large as the Bend Deposit going to escape DNR control?

A large amount of mining that takes place for minerals that are vital to the batteries in electric vehicles, cobalt and lithium, happen where environmental standards are non-existent and the use of child labor takes place. It would seem better to have this mining, where possible, taking place in the US as environmental standards are more rigorously followed.

OK. Getting back to our question about CO2, the gas you exhale when you breathe, the gas that is used in the process of photosynthesis, the process that creates oxygen and makes plants grow. This is all boring 8th grade science and our schools have more important things to teach such as critical race theory, diversity, equality, and inclusiveness. The current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is 0.04% or FOUR ONE-HUNDREDTHS OF ONE PERCENT. Let that sink in for a moment.

— Bryan Bormann, Medford

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