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Elevated Arsenic Detected in Wells at Reclaimed Flambeau Mine Site

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For Immediate Release, March 1, 2024 

Contacts:  Laura Gauger, Deer Tail Scientific (Duluth, MN); Tel: (218) 724-3004

                    Dr. David M. Chambers, Center for Science in Public Participation (Bozeman, MT); Tel: (406) 585-9854

Elevated Arsenic Detected in Wells at Reclaimed Flambeau Mine Site

– Wells within 140 feet of Flambeau River are Contaminated; State officials have taken no action

Groundwater quality testing at the reclaimed Flambeau Mine site south of Ladysmith has revealed high concentrations of arsenic in two wells located within 140 feet of the Flambeau River. Wisconsin’s drinking water standard for arsenic is 10 parts per billion (ppb). Water samples collected from the wells in May 2023 and tested by Flambeau Mining Company (FMC) and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) show arsenic concentrations ranging from 15 to 24 ppb.

Before the Flambeau Mine was constructed in the early 1990s, arsenic concentrations of less than 5 ppb were reported in wells across the project site (i.e., the toxin was undetectable). That changed in 1999, shortly after the mine’s waste water treatment plant (WWTP) was shut down and the unlined mine pit was backfilled with the sulfide-containing waste rock and WWTP sludge that had been generated during operations and stored on liners alongside the mine pit.

Arsenic concentrations ranging from 42 to 83 ppb were measured in the deepest wells within the backfilled Flambeau Mine pit in July 1999 and remain elevated to the present day (41 to 53 ppb in May 2023). Arsenic concentrations in the two wells mentioned at the outset, both located in a 140-foot-wide sliver of bedrock between the backfilled pit and Flambeau River, spiked in 1999 as well and have exceeded Wisconsin’s 10 ppb drinking water standard on numerous occasions over the past two decades.

Other contaminants have also exceeded standards in a number of wells at the project site. Manganese, which is known to cause Parkinson’s-like nerve damage at elevated concentrations, has gone as high as 42,000 ppb in a well within the backfilled Flambeau Mine pit, compared to the public health standard of 300 ppb.

According to information provided by FMC to the Wisconsin DNR, the contaminated water from the backfilled Flambeau Mine pit is on the move and entering the Flambeau River. As stated in the company’s 1989 Mine Permit Application:

“ …  all of the groundwater flowing through the [high sulfur] waste rock in the reclaimed pit will exit the pit through the Precambrian rock in the river pillar and flow directly into the bed of the Flambeau River. Since this flow path is very short and occurs entirely within fractured crystalline rock, … the concentrations of [dissolved] constituents in the groundwater leaving the pit will be the same as the concentrations entering the river bed.”

Longtime conservationist Laura Gauger claims that FMC and its parent company, Kennecott/Rio Tinto, misled the public regarding the likelihood of contaminated waters entering the Flambeau River from the backfilled mine pit and has backed up the claim with a photo of a plaque that FMC displayed at the mine site during operations in the mid-1990s.

Plaque displayed by FMC at the Flambeau Mine project site in the mid-1990s.

Gauger, who co-authored a book about the Flambeau Mine with Roscoe Churchill of Ladysmith in 2007, recounted the following story:

“During the 1989-90 permitting process for the Flambeau Mine, local citizens voiced concerns that groundwater polluted with heavy metals from the Flambeau Mine would get into the nearby Flambeau River. In response, FMC distributed a brochure claiming the bedrock between the mine pit and river would provide a barrier ‘stronger than the Hoover Dam.’ The company reiterated the claim on a plaque displayed at the project site in the mid-1990s.”

She continued: “Years later, a public records request unearthed a technical report that FMC had submitted to the Wisconsin DNR in 1989 as part of the permitting process – a report that concluded the rock between the pit and river was ‘fractured’ and that contaminated groundwater leaving the mine pit would ‘flow directly into the bed of the Flambeau River.’ The public had been duped.”

In light of the high concentrations of arsenic now being recorded in wells at the Flambeau Mine project site, concern has once again been raised by citizens for the health of the Flambeau River. The DNR-approved monitoring plan for the river, however, does not require FMC to report any biological or surface water sampling data for the section of the Flambeau River immediately adjacent to the backfilled mine pit where the contaminated groundwater is entering.

The closest surface water sampling site in the Flambeau River is about 500 feet downstream of the backfilled pit, and the closet biological sampling station, last sampled by FMC in 2011, is about 2,000 feet downstream. The test panel utilized by the company for surface water analysis is also limited. The only metals being tested are copper, iron, manganese and zinc. The DNR has not required FMC to test the river water for arsenic, sulfate or a variety of other substances known to be present in Flambeau waste rock such as uranium, aluminum, cobalt and nickel.

Nor has the DNR required FMC to drill any monitoring wells on the west side of the Flambeau River (opposite side from pit) to determine if the plume of groundwater contamination emanating from the backfilled pit and headed in that direction has extended beyond the river to properties on the other side.

A 1988 memo issued by Foth, FMC’s primary environmental consultant, included the following statement that apparently was designed to rationalize the decision to drill no wells west of the river and quell public concern: “The river is in the way. It is clearly impossible, then, for any activities at the mine, on one side of the river, to affect any water wells on the other side of the river.”

Foth’s sweeping statement has been challenged by experts like Dr. Robert E. Moran (Michael-Moran Associates, Golden, CO), a seasoned hydrogeologist who reviewed FMC’s monitoring program several years ago. He pointed out that the Flambeau River “is only about 5 feet deep in the vicinity of the 225-foot deep mine pit” and stated that “the overall hydrogeological relationships … indicate significant volumes of pit groundwater may be flowing downgradient below the Flambeau River, in the deeper alluvial sediments and or bedrock.”

Dr. Moran went on to advocate for wells being drilled and tested on the west side of the river “to determine whether groundwaters west of the Flambeau River have been negatively impacted by FMC operations.” The same recommendation was made by Dr. David M. Chambers and Dr. Kendra Zamzow (Center for Science in Public Participation, Bozeman, MT) in a 2009 report that identified various surface and groundwater contamination issues at the reclaimed Flambeau Mine project site. 

FMC continues to claim in annual submissions to the Wisconsin DNR that “the Flambeau River remains fully protected and Flambeau remains in full compliance with its permit standards.” But Gauger, who is concerned with FMC’s failure to test for arsenic or any other contaminants in the stretch of the river alongside the mine pit or to drill any monitoring wells west of the river, has referred to FMC’s test program as “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.”

In light of the high concentrations of arsenic in groundwaters exiting the backfilled Flambeau Mine pit and entering the Flambeau River, citizens are hopeful that something can be done to protect the river and properties across the river from the pit. Thus far, however, the Wisconsin DNR has taken no action.   

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Walt Bresette, Ojibwe Leader and Environmental Hero, in Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame

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Dr. Al Gedicks

Sandy Lyon and Walt Bresette at the acid train blockade on the Bad River Ojibwe reservation. | Photo by Kathy Olson, published with permission.

Ojibwe environmental and treaty rights activist Walt Bresette will be inducted posthumously into the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame (WCHF) in a virtual ceremony on April 17, 2024. Bresette will join over 100 members inducted since the Hall of Fame’s  inception, including Aldo Leopold, Nina Leopold Bradley, John Muir, Gaylord Nelson and Menominee Nation environmentalist Hilary Waukau, Sr.

Bresette (1947-1999) was a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, and a long-time treaty rights and environmental activist, author, artist, storyteller, organizer and public speaker. He was an outspoken advocate for Ojibwe treaty rights who asked people to come to the spring boat landings in northern Wisconsin during the spearfishing conflict (1980s-1990s). Walt wondered why people chose to go so far away to show support for others when there were urgent calls for solidarity closer to home. Bresette said, “You don’t have to go to Nicaragua to witness, you can witness in your own backyard.”

Walt was a founder of the Witness for Non-Violence for Treaty and Rural Rights in Northern Wisconsin, modeled on the group Witness for Peace, which was active during the Central American wars (especially in the Contra-backed areas of Nicaragua). The Wisconsin witnesses documented anti-Indian harassment and violence at the boat landings. By 1992, the efforts of the witnesses and a federal court injunction against anti-Indian harassment decreased the violence at the boat landings.

Bresette was a prolific organizer who brought together Native American and rural white communities through organizations like the Midwest Treaty Network, the Upper Great Lakes Green Network and the Wisconsin Greens. He said that the fight between Natives and non-Natives over the walleye harvest diverted attention from the far more significant pollution threat to the Wisconsin fishery for both groups from proposed metallic sulfide mining. 

One of his most powerful messages was that Ojibwe treaty rights provided the greatest environmental protection against destructive metallic sulfide mining, like the Crandon and Ladysmith mining projects, in the ceded territory of the Lake Superior Ojibwe tribes. This was not because the tribes had a direct claim to minerals –—they definitely did not — but because mining threatens the environment, and a threat to the environment is a threat to Ojibwe fishing, hunting and gathering rights. Treaty rights provide the Ojibwe tribes with legal standing in federal courts to protect the habitat of fish, deer and wild rice. 

Bresette was a leader in the successful resistance to the controversial Crandon mine next to the Sokaogon Ojibwe reservation (2003) and he led the grassroots campaign to enact Wisconsin’s “Prove It First” Mining Moratorium law. The law, signed by Governor Tommy Thompson on Earth Day, 1998, prohibited the opening of a new mine in a sulfide ore body until a mining applicant could prove they had not polluted surface water or groundwater in any of their previous mines in the U.S. or Canada.

As a non-violent Ogichidaag (protector of the people), Bresette was active in the opposition to the Rio Tinto/Kennecott copper mine next to the Flambeau River near Ladysmith, Wisconsin. In 1991, the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe and the Sierra Club obtained a preliminary injunction against mine construction because the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had failed to conduct an environmental assessment for endangered resources in the Flambeau River. Despite the restraining order, Kennecott continued construction activity at the site. 

Bresette said that the State of Wisconsin had failed to protect the interests of the Lake Superior Ojibwe and decided to take action to protect the environment.   

I witnessed Bresette climbingover a 10-foot security fence at the Flambeau mine site carrying a club once used by Black Hawk, and “counted coup” on a giant earth mover. The act of hitting the machine was a symbolic scoring of victory against one’s enemies but did no physical damage. In his trial for trespassing on mining company property,  Bresette said the mining permit was illegal because the State of Wisconsin did not consult the Lake Superior Ojibwe about their treaty rights in the fishery of the Flambeau River before it issued the mining permit. 

I interviewed Bresette for my documentary film, Anishinaabe Niijii (Friends of the First People), about the Indian and environmental resistance to the proposed Flambeau mine. Bresette and his good friend Sandy Lyon were co-founders of Anishinaabe Niijii. He said, “Someday our children are going to rise up and say, ‘Where were you when they poisoned my river?’”  His words were prescient. The mine operated from 1993 to 1997. A Flambeau River tributary that crosses part of the reclaimed project site remains polluted to the present day.

Bresette and the Ogichidaa from the Bad River Ojibwe reservation were more successful in 1996 when they blockaded trains traveling through the reservation carrying sulfuric acid to a nearby copper mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The Ogichidaa were concerned that the tracks were unsafe and that a spill from tankers would poison reservation water and the largest wild rice stand in the Great Lakes region. The blockade lasted 28 days and prevented the transport of sulfuric acid across the reservation as a federal mediator conducted talks between the Ogichidaa, the tribe and the railway. The blockade and the assertion of tribal sovereignty protected the Bad River’s sacred wild rice beds and won the support of surrounding communities.

Walt was a charismatic storyteller who was a regular keynote speaker at the many Protect the Earth festivals, organized by Sandy Lyon, on Indian reservations throughout northern Wisconsin.  His vision of a Seventh Generation Constitutional Amendment adopted the Iroquois concept that required Iroquois leaders to think about how today’s decision will affect the seventh generation into the future. The amendment promoted “the rights of the people to use and enjoy air, water, sunlight, and other renewable resources determined by the Congress to be common property, nor shall such use impair their availability for the future generations.” 

Sandy Lyon summarized Bresette’s influence eloquently in a radio tribute broadcast on Woodland Community Radio WOJB-FM on the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation: “He was like the North Star and the people followed him.”

*published with permission.