At first glance, it may seem like there's not much earth-friendly about the remains of copper and iron mines scattered across the Upper Peninsula, the relics of a time when mining was the lifeblood of a developing region, and sustainability didn't have anything to do with our environment.
But three projects in some of the old mining hotspots are turning mine properties and waste products into something new. In Iron River, old mines have given way to a disc golf course; in Hancock, copper mine tailings will be turned into roofing shingles; and in Republic, thriving wetlands have been created from tailings ponds and a pit mine.
The Tailings disc golf course is aptly named, as it is the result of reclamation of three old iron mines in Iron River.
The
Iron County Chamber of Commerce helped develop the nearly two-mile, 18-hole course running along the Iron River, which was designed with difficult terrain varying from woods to rolling hills.
Another ambitious project comes from a
Michigan Technological University alumnus and a professor who are planning to develop a new industry on the shores of the Keweenaw Peninsula.
Stamp sand, a byproduct from the copper mines that built the Keweenaw in the 1800s, remains along Lake Superior, stretching for miles near the town of Gay, and is often considered unsightly by locals. But the finely crushed basalt is being seen through new eyes by MTU alumni Domenic Popko and MTU professor Ralph Hodek, who have studied the sand and concluded it is perfect for the roofing industry.
Roofing shingle manufacturers often make sand by mining and crushing rock, then adding copper to slow the growth of moss and lichens on homeowners' roofs. The Keweenaw stamp sands already have been mined and crushed, and best of all, they already contain trace copper amounts.
Hodek says the Gay sands would enter the market at the right time, as natural sands become scarce and manufacturers have to put more labor and money into making them.
"It's very difficult to find sands now," he says. "You can't mine dunes and rivers. If you need sand in large quantities, you have to make it. Here, we can use material that we already have."
There's no shortage of the sands; there are about 500 million tons across the Keweenaw Peninsula.
The idea is far from theoretical. Plans and negotiations are underway to not only sell the stamp sand to shingle manufacturers, but to add local jobs to the Keweenaw by building a roofing shingle plant.
Popko has formed a local company, GreenSand Corp., and gotten a license from Keweenaw County, which owns the sands near Gay, to use the sands for the next 19 years. The company has gotten grants from various sources including the Michigan Microloan Fund Program and the EPA.
The first step would be a plant employing about 40 people to process the sand, but the ultimate goal is a larger plant that could manufacture shingles on-site, and employ about 300 people.
It's certainly big thinking, making something valuable out of what was once considered wasted space, and that's the same kind of thinking that went into a central U.P. project that's taken years to complete -- the evolution of
wetlands out of old Cliffs mine tailings and ponds near Republic.
"There's been a mine of some sort in the Republic area going back to the 1800s," says
Cliffs Natural Resources communications director Dale Hemmila. But it didn't last forever -- the Republic iron ore mine closed in the 1980s for a temporary shutdown, and never re-opened.
Modern mining companies are required to plan for reclamation after they close mines, and Cliffs had an immense area near Republic to work with after the mine officially closed in 1996. The terrain and existing basins lent themselves well to the idea of engineering a wetlands area, so the old buildings were removed and the old pit was allowed to fill up with water naturally.
Over the next few years, 60,000 wetlands plants and 250,000 trees were planted, along with the addition of more basins and channels.
Now, 690 acres of new wetlands cover the former mine sites, inside a wetlands preserve of 2300 acres that is under a conservation easement from the State of Michigan.
Hemmila says recently, in conjunction with Republic Township, some of the preserve has been opened to public use for low-impact activities like hiking, birdwatching, mountain biking, skiing and snowshoeing.
Perhaps those who benefit most from the new wetlands are the animal users, which include a blue heron rookery, nesting sandhill cranes, deer, black bear, and other native animals.
"We used the lands for many years, and now what we've essentially done is give them back to Mother Nature," says Hemmila.
Kim Hoyum is a freelance writer based in the Upper Peninsula. Her credits include contributor to Geek Girl on the Street as well as a regular writer for several weekly and monthly publications. Hoyum is a graduate of Northern Michigan University where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in writing.