MARQUETTE, MI-- The Green Party of Michigan has renewed its support for a moratorium on metallic sulfide mining in the state.

At a recent membership meeting in Marquette, the party agreed the proposed Back Forty Mine in Menominee County would poison the region’s waters. In April the Department of Environmental Quality issued Aquila Resources a water discharge permit for the 83-acre, open-pit mine.

Aimee Cree Dunn is a Green Party officer from the U.P. She says that method of mining can create acid mine drainage that can persist for thousands of years.

The party is supporting a Wisconsin-style moratorium on sulfide mining. Since 1998 companies in that state must prove that one metallic sulfide mine in the U.S. or Canada has operated for ten years and been closed for ten years without contaminating ground or surface water.

Some lawmakers in Wisconsin have recently launched an effort to repeal the moratorium.