Eagle Mine discusses future plans at community forum

POWELL TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WLUC) - Eagle Mine updated the public on efforts to continue operations in northern Marquette County during a public forum in Powell Township.

During Wednesday night’s forum, Eagle Mine representatives provided a safety update and information about the operation’s environmental impact in Marquette County. Underground exploration continues at its eagle east location and could extend the life of the mine.

“At this particular forum we had a couple of good news pieces with our exploration program that’s happening underground right now trying to find a little bit more ore at Eagle to extend that mine life to 2026-2027 time period,” said Matt Johnson, Eagle Mine external affairs manager.

Market conditions are also trending up for nickel, leading to plans to mine a previously known ore body known as ‘the keel,’ named so because it’s shaped like the keel of a ship.

“With the way the market has changed, we feel more bullish on nickel long-term, we do also see our costs have gone up and we do expect those to stay up long-term as well but, you do the offset and we feel pretty confident that we’re going to be able to take that ‘keel zone’ in,” said Darby Stacey, Eagle Mine managing director.

Work on building a decline into the keel zone will begin in January and will take all of 2023 to complete. Eagle Mine also continues to build a water processing plant to address concerns about water discharge.

“I see it as a fortunate thing, we’re able to expand the mine to access this additional ore while also taking care of the water on another piece of our property, for me it’s very rewarding to work on different challenges all within the same day all within the same business and we do it all the right way,” Stacey continued.

The way Eagle Mine has worked with Marquette County communities and groups has been used as an example of best practices around the world.

“We do get calls from other communities, from other mining companies, from regulators, asking about our success that we’ve had and we like to share the positive things that happened and we also like to share the things that went wrong and how we corrected those,” said Matt Johnson.

Eagle Mine employs more than 400 people and they’re currently hiring. The mine also has a community survey online.

Another community forum is planned for Thursday afternoon in Michigamme Township.

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