Mining plans poison town - opposition to Crandon Mining Co. plans in Nashville, Wisconsin

Progressive, The, June, 1997 by Will Fantle

A proposed mine in northeastern Wisconsin has claimed its first victim -- the local town council.

Crandon Mining company (jointly owned by Exxon and Rio Algom) wants to put a massive zinc and copper mine near the Forest County town of Nashville. The proposal is highly controversial.

Opponents fear that the mine's acidic sulfide waste poison surrounding surface and ground waters. And members of the tiny Sokaogon Chippewa Indian reservation (contained entirely within the town of Nashville) believe their wild-rice crop and spiritual home would be ruined by the shaft mine.

Last December, after twenty-eight months of negotiations -- with many of the meetings held behind closed doors -- the Nashville town board announced it was ready to approve an agreement with the mining company that would help make it possible for the mine to begin operations. Outraged residents reacted swiftly and circulated a petition calling for a special town meeting to stop the board from signing on the bottom line. The town chair gaveled the meeting closed shortly after it began and before any of the 300 people in attendance had a chance to speak.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime issue," says George Rock, a mining opponent who owns a cottage in the township. "Why in the hell didn't the town officials bring this out for a referendum?"

"We were treated like Third World people," adds Rock. "They've [the mining companies] done it for years in other countries, and now they're doing it in northern Wisconsin."

Mining opponents ran a slate of candidates for all three board seats and the positions of town treasurer and town clerk. In April, nearly 100 percent of Nashville's registered voters trooped to the polls and trounced four of the five incumbents, narrowly reelecting only the town treasurer. The new board even includes, for the first time in recent memory, a representative from the Sokaogon Chippewa tribe.

"This is a heads up," notes new town chair Chuck Sleeter. "People said this was a referendum on mining, and this is true. We're trying to send a message."

Sleeter believes the mining agreement -- negotiated in secret -- violates Wisconsin's open-meetings law. Crandon Mining officials insist the contract is binding and there is little the town can do to change the agreement. Sleeter doesn't see it that way. He and others are challenging the agreement with a lawsuit.

But before the new board members could take further action against the mine, they needed the keys to the town government. The defeated town board initially refused to leave office.

In what the town was dubbing "Weinergate," the losing politicians had claimed that the Chippewa violated election laws by offering free hot dogs to tribal members for voting, even though the food was not tied to any particular vote. A law firm that helped craft the mining agreement prepared to handle the election challenge, but the old board eventually gave in.

Sleeter says the Wisconsin Elections Board confirms that his newly elected board is the town's legal representative.

The old board had even offered to cut a deal with Sleeter. "They said they'd give us the keys to the town hall" if we dropped the lawsuit, he says. "This was not an elections issue, it was Let's Make a Deal." For more information, see the web site of the Crandon mine opposition at:www.earthwins.com.