Forum, Protect the Porkies
The presenter will be Tom Grotenwohl, founder of Protect the Porkies, http://www.ProtectThePorkies.com. He and his organization are concerned about the Copperwood Mine project. Approximately 14 miles north of Wakefield, it would be the closest sulfide mine to Lake Superior in history, and it would mine under Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.
Protect the Porkies says that the Copperwood Mine would be run by an inexperienced Canadian company that has never before operated a mine.
On August 26, the Michigan House of Representatives approved a $50 million earmark to Wakefield Township to fund “infrastructure” to enable the proposed Copperwood Mine to be built. Now the Michigan Senate must decide whether to include or exclude the $50 million grant of taxpayer dollars from the 2026 budget.
“This is effectively a corporate handout to accelerate a risky project for a foreign company to extract our mineral wealth and ship it out of the country with no guarantee of return,” Grotenwohl says. The mining company also won’t commit to hiring a majority of local or even Michigan residents, he adds.