The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) last week announced a proposed decision to issue a permit to Kennecott Minerals Company to dig a mine, called the Eagle Prospect, in the middle of one of the Upper Peninsula's most beautiful, pristine and environmentally sensitive regions, the Yellow Dog Plains.

Of course, the story was big news in the sparsely populated UP, where a coalition of residents, Native American tribes and environmentalists has been fighting the mine for years.  Downstate, the story was small beer.

That's too bad, because what happens in this case will have a profound impact on the entire UP, currently experiencing a land rush from mining companies wanting to exploit deposits of nickel and copper embedded in sulfide rock.  The big problem with "sulfide mines" is that sulfide rock, when exposed to air and water, produces sulfuric acid and the dissolved heavy metals that kill fish.  Opponents of the mine point out that no sulfide mine in history has ever been operated without discharges of this "acid mine drainage".

Worse, the mine is located smack dab under the head waters of the Salmon Trout River, a famously pristine trout stream that supports the last remaining spawning population on the south shore of Lake Superior of the Coaster Brook Trout, a colorful relative of the Brook Trout that can reach 25 inches in length.  Fishermen and scholars alike fear once the Eagle Prospect mine starts up, the Coasters are toast.

Up to 2004, Michigan had no law - none! - regulating "nonferrous metallic mineral mining", sulfide mining to you and me.  A group of stakeholders worked out a consensus statute and set of regulations, now adopted by the state, that are widely regarded as among the toughest in the country.  Robert McCann, a spokesman for the DEQ, says "I think it's safe to say this (Eagle Prospect) proposal has received more scrutiny than all but a few the state has ever looked at."

And in the cash- and job-starved UP, the prospect of good paying jobs is normally greeted with enthusiasm.

Only problem is, by Kennecott's own admission, the 120 or so mining jobs would last only around 10 years while the mine is being built and in operation.  And economists and businessmen wonder what happens to recreation, tourism, hunting and fishing - the long term economic future of the region - if the mine pollutes the area.

"People up here aren't opposed to mining, they accept mining," says Marvin Roberson, a Sierra Club official who lives in the UP.  "What they are opposed to is reckless exploitation of the land's most sensitive areas for a few dozen temporary jobs."

Approval of the mine is by no means a done deal.  The DEQ will consider additional public comments at a March 8 hearing in Marquette before reaching a decision.

But the stakes are very high.  The map of the UP that shows in red land leased for mineral exploration makes the entire area look like it has the measles.  The Eagle Prospect mine is the first to go through the permitting process set out in the new state law.  Any decision is bound to set an important precedent that will determine the future of mining activity throughout an area is the heart and soul of Michigan's glorious natural resources.

The new mining law sets out the various criteria the DEQ is to follow in composing a mining permit, if it decides to issue one.  But the draft permit itself is - and will be until it is issued - a secret, now being concocted by bureaucrats inside the DEQ.  Opponents of the mine wonder whether the Office of Geological Survey, the division of the DEQ that is overseeing the process, has a corporate culture that prefers facilitating mining to rigorously regulating it.  And some think public oversight of a project as important as this one would be improved if the draft permit is made public before it is issued.

Governor Granholm, in a letter to her appointee, DEQ director Steven Chester, instructed the department to "give thorough and rigorous review to Kennecott's permit applications and ensure that they meet each and every aspect of the new regulations. ... While this project has the potential to provide significant economic benefit to the local community, the irreplaceable natural resources of the Upper Peninsula constitute an extraordinary endowment that we hold in trust for the benefit of our citizens.  This sacred trust must be protected."

The stakes are high for the governor, politically and as a matter of good public policy.

It's everybody's bad luck that the ore deposit for the Eagle Prospect mine wound up right in the middle of some of the most environmentally valuable and sensitive woods and waters in all of Michigan.

But merely because rich metals are discovered in a uniquely priceless and fragile environment is no necessary argument those metals should be mined. Suppose a valuable gold deposit were to be discovered right at the foot of Mount Rushmore.  Would it really make sense to open a mine there that might destroy a national monument?

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Phil Power is a longtime observer of politics, economics and education issues in Michigan. He would be pleased to hear from readers at ppower@hcnnet.com. Phil Power is president of the Center for Michigan. However, these opinions and others expressed in Phil Power's columns are individual opinions and do not in any way represent official policy positions of the Center for Michigan.