Senate Panel To Vote On Ending Mining Moratorium

A Wisconsin Senate panel was scheduled to vote this (Wednesday) afternoon on a bill to end the state’s sulfide mining moratorium. Mining committee chairman Tom Tiffany of Hazelhurst is asking colleagues to endorse his measure that would end the 1998 moratorium. Wisconsin’s last major sulfide mine ran for four years near Ladysmith in the ’90s, and mining supporters and opponents still don’t agree on whether environmental damage was left behind. Tiffany’s bill would also exempt premining samples from the D-N-R’s environmental impact statements — and administrative law judges would not be able to reject the D-N-R’s decisions on mining applications.