“I remember growing up next to a coal mine – those were some of the best days of my life.”

This is a sentence that has never been truthfully uttered in the history of mankind. However, don’t you worry, children of the Chippewa Tribe in the Penokee Hills, you can make history and be the first to do so!  That is, if you enjoy the pollution of the environment you live in.

At the moment, Senate Republicans in Madison are planning a new mining bill to break ground on an iron mine in the northwest portion of Wisconsin. Along with this new bill comes more baggage than Gov. Scott Walker will take when he flees the state. First, the construction of this new mine could adversely affect one of the most fertile regions in the state with chemicals produced by the mine contaminating the wild rice beds of the Chippewa that occupy the area.

Due to the potential unnatural disaster this mine could cause in the near future, the bill also includes a tax in place to pay for any damages to the environment that can be linked to the mine. As a current resident of the state of Wisconsin, I find this unnerving. It seems as if the senators and the company that will be doing the digging, Gogebic Taconite, are almost certain of a disaster. This will also result in citizens of Wisconsin handing over more of their hard-earned money to the government in order to mop off the mistakes made by a mine that they were not even in favor of in the first place.

The Republicans hatched a bill in the final week of January calling for the approval or denial of an application for an open-ended mining permit within a year. If a decision is not made on whether to approve or decline the permit by that time, then the application is approved. This makes one think that maybe these politicians are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public as they look for a back-door route into the mining industry. Adding to the tactics utilized in an attempt to get the bill passed, the Republican Party scheduled a hearing for the bill in a Milwaukee suburb, which is a couple hundred miles away from the future site of the mine. I find this to be very interesting considering the fact that the mine will not affect the Milwaukee suburb at all. Are they afraid of the opposition they will face further north and closer to the actual site? Although the Republicans eventually called for a second hearing in northern Wisconsin, it was out of reluctance and a response to the heavy opposition of their first hearing.

There is one positive aspect that may come from this situation: more jobs. However, the cost of these potential jobs outweighs the gains by far with all of the room for environmental catastrophe and health hazards not only threatening residents of the area, but also the miners.

Hayes Cascia ([email protected]) is a freshman with an undeclared major.