Eagle Mine

MARQUETTE — Eagle Mine officials in a virtual community forum held Thursday detailed aspects of the mine’s closure, which is about four years away.

Eagle Mine, located in Michigamme Township and owned by Lundin Mining, is the only primary nickel-mining project in the United States, and also produces copper and small amounts of other metals. The expected mine life is until 2025.

“Mine closure planning, as an industry standard, occurs many, many years in advance,” said Jen Nutini, environmental superintendent for Eagle Mine. “It’s basically a construction project in reverse, so it requires that level, that rigor, of planning.”

Nutini said the mine’s permits require that reclamation plans are submitted, so officials now are building in more details as how those plans will be put into place.

Five basic items, she noted, are considered in closure planning: environment, safety, employees, suppliers and community benefit.

Nutini said Eagle Mine now is in the planning phase until roughly 2023 when other actions, such as specialty contractors performing their part of the closure plan, will begin. The reclamation process then is expected to begin after the mine is closed.

“I like the word reclamation because we’re reclaiming the land,” Nutini said.

According to Nutini, the first stage of that process would take about two years and would involve actions such as demolition, mine flooding and water treatments.

The second stage, she said, would include stabilization efforts such as monitoring vegetation that has been planted.

“All of the monitoring that we do during operations continues until post-closure,” said Nutini, who pointed out that some activities could take five to 10 years after the mine is closed, and there still would be a mine presence, at this point, until 2052 for certain kinds of monitoring.

Nutini said mine officials hope to provide, over the course of the next several community forums, more specific examples and aspects of the closure plan.

Other topics were discussed at the forum, including economic impact.

Matt Johnson, external affairs manager for Eagle Mine, talked about the mine’s 2013 economic study.

“The reason why we performed this economic impact study is to better understand what happens to the local economy when you build a new mine, such as Eagle,” Johnson said. “One of the concerns the community had in the permitting process of Eagle is the boom-bust economy that mining could potentially bring to the community, and was it really worth it?”

In 2013, Eagle Mine published a predictive study regarding the mine’s economic impact on Marquette County, which is “significant” in the county area, Johnson said.

He pointed out that mining makes up about 3% to 4% of employment in Marquette County, and that includes Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. iron ore operations. The percentage of wages mining provides in the county jumps to 15%, he said, and considering taxes and dollars put into contractors and goods to keep mines operating, the overall output of mining in the county is 22%.

This year, the mine partnered with Michigan Tech University and Business for Social Responsibility to work toward understanding the actual economic impact Eagle Mine has had on the local economy, he said. That study is anticipated to be completed in the first quarter of 2022.

“This helps us understand who are the organizations and smaller locally owned companies, for example, or local communities and schools, that benefit the most from Eagle who also need to better understand what life is like and what that transition looks like after Eagle,” Johnson said.

To help mitigate the transition away from procurement dollars that suppliers have in the community, Johnson said the mine has created Accelerate UP, the purpose of which is to diversify the economy away from mining; an emergency Eagle Emerging Entrepreneurs Fund, which provides “micro-loans” to communities that otherwise wouldn’t qualify for traditional business loans; and is involved in a middle college program to help high schoolers enter skilled trades while they’re still in high school.

Eagle Mine Managing Director Darby Stacey addressed recent safety activities at the mine, noting the mine recently received a Sentinels of Safety award from the National Mining Association.

“It’s the most prestigious safety award in mining in the United States, and we won that, actually, two years in a row, for 2019 and 2020,” Stacey said.

Johnson said the next community forum is set for May.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500 ext. 250. Her email is cbleck@miningjournal.net.