Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — The saga of Gogebic-Taconite’s efforts to develop a mine site near Upson, Wis., has come to an apparent end after the company failed to make a necessary payment to Iron County to preserve the company’s lease option on county land adjacent to the proposed mine site.
“They never sent the payment in for the next year ... so at this time I would say it’s probably a dead issue,” Iron County Board Chairman Joe Pinardi told the Daily Globe Tuesday. “The G-Tac saga is over as we speak because they didn’t renew their lease and right now it’s just a dead horse.”
According to Iron County Clerk Michael Saari, G-Tac’s lease option agreement required the company pay the county $30,000 by Jan. 26 to maintain its right to the property until an actual lease goes into effect.
Saari told the Daily Globe the county hasn’t received any money and he hasn’t had contact with anyone at G-Tac since the company announced the closure of its Hurley office on Feb. 27.
The agreement to pay $30,000 came after the county board voted 8-7 to amend the lease option agreement at its Feb. 25, 2015, meeting.
The amendment altered wording in the option so instead of G-Tac paying $20,000 to retain its option on the land for 2015 and 2016, G-Tac avoided paying anything in 2015 and agreed to pay the county $30,000 this year to maintain the option for three years — in effect retroactively paying the county at the established rate of $10,000 per year.
The changes to the option became necessary after the company informed Pinardi they would not be able to make the $20,000 lease payment by the Jan. 26, 2015, deadline.
“They called me down to the office and said headquarters told them not to spend any more money so, ‘What do we do now?’ ... I went down there, with the proposal of $10,000 per year — $10,000 this year and $10,000 next year. There is your $20,000 right back at us. They emailed Florida through to headquarters and Florida rejected our offer. They came back with a counter offer of skipping one year, giving us $30,000 in 2016 covering ‘15, ‘16 and ‘17,” Pinardi said after the meeting to amend the agreement.
The board’s vote ratified Pinardi’s acceptance of the new terms, which he had initially agreed to prior to the Jan. 26 deadline.
The county received $40,000 from G-Tac for the land from the original option agreement signed in 2011.
G-Tac lost the rights to the land comprising the actual mine site — the county’s land, adjacent to the site, was needed as part of the plan but wasn’t actually going to be mined — in September.
Former G-Tac President Bill Williams told Wisconsin Public Radio the company didn’t make its payment because the project was no longer being developed.
“We made them $40,000 in payments through the course of our project exploration, and that’s it,” Williams said to WPR. “That was there to hold that option for us to lease it, and now it’s done.”
On Tuesday, Pinardi said he was still hopeful the land would be mined and was pleased the owners of the mine site — La Pointe Iron Co., and RGGS Land & Minerals — were continuing to communicate with stakeholders in the area.
“(The landowners) are still working with everyone. ... They had a couple local meetings with a couple local officials. They are trying to have a meeting set up with people from (the Bad River tribe). They want to keep on an open term with everyone. And some day they are still going to pursue (a mine) I guess, but just not right now,” Pinardi said. “They’re trying to make all the connections, and make sure all the doors are still open for communication purposes, but that’s as far as it is right now.”
He acknowledged current ore prices meant development in the near future was unlikely, he was optimistic the mine would eventually happen.
“Some day, when the value of the ore gets valued enough, then it will be mined.”
