Mike Foley, Copperwood site manager, stands beside a small part of the intricately engineered East Stream Diversion project. Boulder veins, to the left of the stream bed, are designed to slow water flow in the event the creek overflows its banks. (Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette)

GOGEBIC COUNTY — As Highland Copper Company continues site work at the Copperwood Mine site, the Canadian-based company offered the Daily Mining Gazette a behind-the-scenes tour of the sustainable development work underway at the Copperwood Project. The guided tour was to showcase how modern mining and environmental stewardship can go hand-in-hand.

Two of projects discussed were the Gypsy Creek Wetland Restoration and the East Stream Diversion Project. The wetland restorations entails 15 acres of new and enhanced wetland habitat that have been created with native sedges, rushes, wildflowers and trees and is now home to species like painted turtles and killdeer.  The environmental preparations are being conducted under the close supervision of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

Andrea Martin, Copperwood Project and environmental director, said Highland is working very closely with EGLE.

“EGLE represents the public good for Michigan. That’s their goal and via our permits, we have contractual obligations that we need to meet.”

Martin said the permit process included Highland providing bonds to EGLE.

“They have: No. 1, financial assurance, meaning we’ve given them money, kind of like in escrow, that we won’t give up until we’ve done the work that we contracted for,” said Martin. “Secondarily, EGLE can update our permits, change our permits, yank our permits, so please be aware that they are representing Michigan’s interests and they do a darn good job.”

EGLE can update Highland’s permits at any time, Martin said. It can also change permits or “yank” them. Several permits, including the wetland and stream, and the mining permit, have what she calls financial assurances.

“Copperwood gives money to the state and they hold on to it,” she said. “When we have demonstrated we have done certain benchmarks, they will give us some of this money back. In the event we don’t perform, or in the event we walk away, they have money to address the site – but t that’s not gonna happen here. But that’s what that financial assurance addresses.”

Martin said in order to ensure the success of all stakeholders, Highland will continue to work closely with EGLE.

“We want to collaborate with them, we want to stay within regulations,” she said, “but in doing so, it’s not going to be easy; it’s going to cost us and we need to do it responsibly.”

The cost of the site preparation work has totaled more than $15 million, even before it meets EGLE’s environmental requirements to begin mining.

Mike Foley, Copperwood site manager, said the carefully designed ecosystem will remain a permanent conservation area even after mining operations end.

Wynand van Dyke, project director with Highland Copper Company, said re-routing a stream is much more involving “than digging a trench and thinking you’ve actually diverted a stream.”

“Under the permits issued by Michigan EGLE,” he said, “the East Stream Diversion Project takes one of the streams on the site and routes it easterly it a couple of hundred yards from where it was prior to this project in order to accommodate Tailings Disposal Facility (TDF) management.”

Foley said the East Stream Diversion project is thoroughly engineered and designed.

“The diversion project is highly engineered by some of the best stream engineers, arguably, in the country, or at least, in the Upper Midwest,” he said.

Before the construction of the TDF can begin, upstream natural creeks must be diverted to convey their water away from the future infrastructure. The East Stream Diversion, begun in 2023, was constructed along the future TDF perimeter areas. Prior to the TDF works beginning, connections between the upstream existing creeks and the natural channel stream diversions were be made. EGLE stipulates environmental mitigation must be completed before TDF construction stages or mining can begin.