Eagle Mine Managing Director Darbey Stacey, standing at center, discusses one of the high-potential incidents at the Michigamme community forum on Wednesday. This was the second of three forums held by Eagle Mine in May with the next round of community forums scheduled for November. (Journal photo by Dreyma Beronja)

MICHIGAMME — Eagle Mine hosted a community forum in Michigamme to update residents on operations and the status of the mine on Wednesday.

The community forum was part of a series throughout Marquette County. Eagle Mine hosts forums in May and November.

At the beginning of the forum, Eagle Mine External Affairs Manager Matt Johnson provided those who attended with background on the mine.

Johnson said the ore body was first discovered in 2002 and started production in 2014. Eagle Mine is also the only nickel mine in the United States.

The original closure date of Eagle Mine was in 2021, but due to the discovery of more minerals and ore bodies, along with Eagle East production beginning in 2019, the new closure date of the mine is 2027.

“We keep having these incremental changes in mine life which our employees are very happy about,” Johnson said.

After the introduction, Eagle Mine Managing Director Darby Stacey provided a safety share for attendees of the forum. He addressed two high-potential incidents involving fire that happened in the mine earlier this year.

“A high-potential incident is where nobody got hurt in this particular incident, but the potential was there. If the conditions were just a little different, someone could have been seriously hurt,” Stacey said. “We investigate these with just as much rigor if the incident did end up in an injury.”

The first incident happened in January and involved a heat blanket that was on the exhaust of a haul truck underground. Stacey said the blanket got sprayed with hydraulic oil and was suspected to be old, resulting in hydrocarbons getting under the blanket and catching on fire.

“The driver of the truck noticed the smoke, got out, saw smoke, saw flames and put it out with a fire extinguisher,” Stacey said. “They took that up, took the shroud (heat blanket) off, cleaned it, put it back on, put it back into service (and) fixed the hydraulic problem.”

Stacey said that about a month later on the same truck at the same area there was another fire. He said for the first incident, because the shroud was old and loose and not tight, it allowed fluids to get under it. Instead of the shroud repelling hydrocarbons, Stacey said the shroud ended up becoming a trap due to the cold.

As for the second incident, Stacey said the truck should have never been put back into service.

“A fire in an underground mine is a very serious situation,” Stacey said. “All of the air in the mine is basically ventilated in so if you put smoke in that atmosphere, it’s a hazard to everyone working.”

Going forward, Stacey said Eagle Mine needs to improve maintenance practices more on the heat shrouds.

“If they’ve been damaged or compromised, we need to just throw them away,” Stacey said.

Continuing in the health and safety statistics, Stacey said there were two lost time incidents at the Humboldt Mill site, both relating to ergonomics.

The first incident resulted in an employee injuring his back and the second was an employee pulling a muscle in his bicep.

Stacey said that the takeaways from these two incidents were to take breaks, not push through pain and ask coworkers and supervisors to be extra sets of eyes when working.

“Ergonomic injuries are really difficult because it relies on the individual pressing pause,” Stacey said.

Including the two fire-related high-potential incidents, Eagle Mine had four significant and high potential incidents.

Stacey said two incidents related to equipment contact with other equipment.

“The first was with a haul truck underground. Another haul truck was passing and they rubbed beds, so that’s an incident that should not have happened, a potential high impact,” Stacey said. “The second one, a maintenance employee underground parked a live vehicle pickup truck, put it in park, put the brake on, stepped out of the truck and it actually rolled forward and hit another vehicle.”

Stacey said the two incidents are still under investigation and when the investigation is over, Eagle Mine will be able to learn from the incidents so that they do not happen again.

Another incident Stacey talked about was related to an exploration hole.

“Some of our exploration holes hold a little bit of pressure and we have valves on the ends of those to make sure that we can control that,” Stacey said. “While they (workers) were doing maintenance on a hole next to that, it did rattle that valve loose and shot off with an employee nearby.”

He said this incident had no injuries.

The last incident was related to roof maintenance in the mine. Stacey said the mesh fell out and rocks fell, resulting in Eagle Mine having to shut the ramp down for nine days to make sure that all areas were secured and no other rocks would fall.

“Even a rock the size of a fist dropping out even from the height of this ceiling, would be a very serious injury,” Stacey said. “So we have to have zero rocks falling in the mine.”

Stacey said the long-term fix from this incident was changing the bolt type to prevent rocks falling in the future.

Stacey said the Eagle Mine is still exploring, which led to the extension of when the mine is expected to close.

“We don’t have forever to find this (ore deposits),” Stacey said. “We are operating the mine but 2027 will come fast.”

Other topics discussed include one environmental incident, Eagle Mine’s severance tax and community engagement opportunities.

The environmental incident was from a forklift puncturing a barrel that contained chemicals, resulting in chemicals being spilled onto the soil during the May snowstorm. Due to the chemical spill onto soil, Eagle Mine replaced the soil and plans on disposing of it in the safest way possible.

The mine is also the only company in Michigan to pay a severance tax. Johnson said the more nickel is worth, the more Eagle pays in taxes.

“Thirty-five percent goes to the state and that 65 percent is divided between Humboldt and Michigamme townships,” Johnson said.

He also said 2022 was a record year in terms of paying taxes.

Summer tours of both Eagle Mine and Humboldt Mill are now available for booking. To book a summer tour, visit eaglemine.com/tours.

For those who missed the May round of community forums, the next round will be held in November.

For more information about Eagle Mine, visit online at eaglemine.com.

Dreyma Beronja can be reached at 906-228-2500 ext. 548. Their email address is dberonj@miningjournal.net.