My colleague LoRayne Apo-Joynt recently blogged about her frustration with the Marquette Mining Journal. After reading a story on the visit of a mining executive that seemed like an “exercise in dictation,” she described the paper as “not fit for wrapping fish” and worried that its shoddy journalism was raising her blood pressure.

Given Rayne’s difficult experience with the paper, I am happy to report that the cover of last weekend’s Sunday edition featured an excellent series by Miriam Moeller on the Protect the Earth Summit — an event that drew people to Marquette from across the Upper Midwest to build a grassroots movement to protect the region from a nickel sulfide mine planned by the Kennecott Eagle Mineral Co.

Moeller’s coverage does a lot to balance out the coverage of the Kennecott executive visit that so frustrated Rayne.

I attended the summit as an observer to learn more about the controversy over the Kennecott mine proposal and was struck by many of the same issues that Moeller chose to cover, especially a presentation by Al Gedicks, who explained how mining opponents in Wisconsin managed to build a coalition and successfully organize a statewide moratorium on sulfide mining.

Laura Furtman, co-author of “The Buzzards Have Landed: The Real Story of the Flambeau Mine,” explained how another Kennecott project, the Flambeau Mine (which is being touted as model of environmentally safe mining) has severely contaminated local groundwater.

Also during the weekend summit, members of the Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa community showed their support for efforts to stop the Kennecott Mine by presenting an eagle feather to members of the Yellow Dog Plains community in an emotional ceremony at Eagle Rock where the mine is planned.

You can read more about this in Moeller’s stories here, here and here.

The Summer Cloud drum circle performed at the Protect the Earth Summit this weekend near the site of a planned nickel sulfide mine.

The Summer Cloud drum circle performed at the Protect the Earth Summit this weekend near the site of a planned nickel sulfide mine.

The move to begin a new mining era in the Upper Peninsula has serious implications for the people and environment in the UP and beyond, and is not receiving sufficient coverage. I’ve wondered whether critical coverage of mining proposals can be expected in a newspaper such as the Mining Journal, which is named for the very contentious industry it must now cover.

Here at Michigan Messenger we are willing to acknowledge good coverage as well as slack coverage. Moeller’s work covering the Protect the Earth Summit shows that the Mining Journal is at least willing to cover the growing movement against Kennecott’s planned nickel sulfide mine. That’s a start, eh?