The Copperwood Mine project planned for Gogebic County was considered for a huge state grant, but that never came through. Now it's starting to get nibbles from other funding sources.
IPR's Ellie Katz talked with Up North Lowdown host Ed Ronco about the latest for this controversial project. This transcript of their conversation has been edited for length and clarity:
Remind us, please, what exactly it is and why it is so controversial.
This would mine mostly copper and a little bit of silver in the Upper Peninsula. It hasn't actually been built yet, but it's been proposed, and they've been working on getting permits for over a decade now. It's controversial, primarily because of its location. It's in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park and the tailings dam for the mine, which would hold all the mine waste, would be built on land sloping towards Lake Superior, which is less than two miles away.
The mine would be mined for about 11 years. You've got a very controversial project, you've got a lot of vocal opposition, but at the same time, a lot of support from local governments who kind of see this as a potential windfall for a pretty depressed economy in the western U.P.
Three years ago, the mine was considered for a state grant worth about $50 million. Where is that now?
So that grant kind of died. It's taken a couple different forms over the years. Lawmakers didn't approve the grant in the original form. And then some legislators from the U.P. tried to get that $50 million in the state budget set aside for Wakefield Township. The $50 million, whatever form it takes, would be used for upgrading local infrastructure. But lawmakers also didn't approve that in last year's budget.
Let’s break down the good, bad and ugly from the perspective of this project and its supporters. What’s working for them? What’s not?
They have a decent amount of local support from local governments and universities, not from tribal nations, but other local governments. The company has all the state permits it needs. They're marketing that really hard because it's a very long and expensive process.
Maybe the best (for the company) is that last fall, the company, Highland Copper got a letter of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, laying out the possibility for $250 million in debt financing. That's huge for them, because they said they need about 400 million for the project. So that would get them more than halfway there. It's not a sure thing, but, but they seem pretty confident about it.
The last thing that's looking up for them is copper prices are at an all-time high. Right now, demand is super high. You know, between renewable energy technologies and things like data centers, those all consume big amounts of copper.
Let's talk about the bad and the ugly.
Well, flip side of that coin — that penny, you might say — is that copper is a commodity. It fluctuates. So that price could go down, which would seriously lower their profit and their value.
Also not great is again that the company needs a lot of money for this mine. That $250 million from the Export-Import Bank is not a guarantee. And you can see the company kind of scrambling a little bit. They had stake in another U.P. mining project. They sold off that stake to have more money for Copperwood.
And also, Copperwood’s main project investor pulled out. They seem like they'll be able to find other investors to fill the gap, but that's where their financials seem to be standing right now.
Let’s talk about the opposition. What do people who don't want this to happen think?
They’re in the same position they've been in for the last several years. Governor Whitmer recently released her budget proposal for 2027 and there's nothing explicitly mentioning Copperwood. But Tom Grotewohl, who's kind of the lead of the opposition group called “Protect the Porkies” said they want to keep an eye on whether those $50 million dollars make it back into the budget again somehow this year.
“Many people take the common sense view that this proposal is simply too close to Lake Superior, too close to Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, and there's too little to be gained from it,” he told IPR.
Producer: Austin Rowlader
Music: Blue Dot Sessions
