You Drink It

By Lawrence Cosentino
Lansing City Pulse

The state is getting close to a decision on whether to allow Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co. to break ground — literally and figuratively — in the UP for a sulfide mine. Environmentalists are doing all they can to prevent it.
When government officials sit through lengthy public hearings, a glass of water can be a lifesaver. At an emotional hearing Sept. 19 at the Lansing Center, an unorthodox petitioner offered up a bit of theater, reversing the roles of rescuer and rescued.

A panel of staffers from the state’s Department of Environmental Quality watched as 14-year Upper Peninsula wilderness dweller Chauncy Moran poured a quart of crystal-clear water from one bottle into another, dramatizing a bitter fight over the state’s water resources, now heading into its final innings.

Moran, a white-haired mountain man lean as a deer, told officials the water came from the pristine Salmon Trout River, near the Big Bay area west of Marquette, not far from his own home on Moss Creek.

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