EPA Challenge to Issuance of Permits.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin v. Environmental Protection Agency, et al.

Case No.: 19-1130

Officials: SYKES, HAMILTON, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: EPA Challenge to Issuance of Permits

For the Menominee Indian Tribe, the river that bears its name is a place of special importance. The Menominee River runs along the border between Northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. According to its origin story, the Tribe came into existence along the banks of the River thousands of years ago. This birthplace contains artifacts and sacred sites of historic and cultural importance to the Tribe. All these years later, the Tribe returns to the riverbanks for ceremonies and celebrations.

Sometime before 2017, the Tribe learned that Aquila Resources intended to embark on a mining project known as the Back Forty alongside the Menominee River and in close proximity to Wisconsin's northeast border. Aquila successfully applied for several necessary permits from the state of Michigan. Concerned the project would disrupt and dislocate aspects of tribal life, the Tribe wrote letters to the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers asking both agencies to reconsider its 1984 decision to allow Michigan, instead of the federal government, to issue certain permits under the Clean Water Act. The EPA and Army Corps responded not...