MILWAUKEE (AP) - The president of the company looking to open an iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin faces charges in Spain for allegedly violating environmental laws at a Spanish mine he previously managed.
Gogebic Taconite President Bill Williams and two others are accused of mismanaging and polluting groundwater at the large copper mine in southern Spain.
Williams is the former water director at Cobre Las Cruces mine, an open pit mine and processing plant near Seville.
A law firm retained by the mine’s owners said Friday it believes Williams and the two other managers named by Spanish prosecutors will be cleared.
Gogebic is proposing to build a $1.5 billion iron ore mine in Ashland and Iron counties that will require approval from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others. The project has been lauded for some 700 jobs that would be created, but environmentalists and members of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa who live in the area fear the 1,000-foot-deep open pit mine would pollute one of the last pristine regions of Wisconsin.
Williams declined to comment to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (https://bit.ly/1jGAM2I ) this week on the legal proceeding. He was employed at the Spanish mine from January 2006 to January 2011.
Gogebic’s interest in the Wisconsin project began in 2010, before Williams joined the company.
The Spanish charges center on claims Cobre Las Cruces pumped groundwater away from the site to assure that it didn’t flow into the pit during mining. The water was returned to an aquifer on the same property. That caused pollution of groundwater sources, including elevated levels of arsenic, prosecutors allege.
In an interview in November, Williams said the mine built a treatment system to clean the water before injecting it back into the groundwater.
Besides Williams, the current environmental director and the former CEO of the Spanish mine also are charged, the Journal Sentinel reported.
Cobre Las Cruces is owned by First Quantum Minerals of Vancouver, British Columbia.
“Cobre Las Cruces is confident that, once the administration of justice has run its due course and the truth of the matter ultimately emerges, the company and its executives will be found innocent of each and every one of the charges brought against them,” Herbert Smith Freehills, a law firm representing First Quantum, said in a statement.
The law firm said that the company will cooperate with Spanish authorities.
Bob Seitz, a spokesman for Gogebic, said the proceedings will have no impact on Gogebic’s efforts in Wisconsin. Williams could be called on to travel to Spain for the case, Seitz said.
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Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, https://www.jsonline.com
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