#menomineeriver — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #menomineeriver, aggregated by home.social.
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The ancestors of the #Menominee Indian Tribe of #Wisconsin built earthen mounds to grow crops. The site could be the largest preserved archaeological field system in the eastern United States
by Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent
June 10, 2025"Hundreds of years before the arrival of the first Europeans, #Indigenous farmers were growing crops like squash, corn and beans in earthen mounds they built on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
"The mounds—created by the ancestors of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin—likely represent the largest preserved archaeological field system in the eastern United States, according to a study published this month in the journal Science.
"Archaeologists discovered the mounds in May 2023 during the brief window between winter and spring. The winter snow had melted, but the leaves had not yet appeared on the trees. They surveyed 330 acres using a drone equipped with a laser that mapped subtle features on the surface—a remote sensing technique known as lidar.
"The team mapped an area that has cultural and historical importance to the Menominee. Located along the #MenomineeRiver on the #MichiganWisconsin border, this region is known as #AnaemOmot, or the 'Dog’s Belly.'
"The lidar uncovered a quilt-like pattern of parallel ridges that range from four to 12 inches tall. The mounds extend beyond the study area, suggesting the ancestral Menominee agricultural system was ten times larger than previously thought.
"The fact that the mounds still exist is unusual.
" 'Most field systems have been either lost or destroyed due to intensive land use across most of North America, through farming, including pastures and the cutting down of trees for urban development,' says co-author Jesse Casana, an anthropologist at Dartmouth College, in a statement.
"The research gives scientists a 'little window' into what #PreColonial life was like for the ancestral #MenomineePeople, Casana adds.
"During their excavations, the scientists also found several artifacts, including charcoal and fragments of broken ceramics. These discoveries suggest that the area’s Indigenous farmers may have dumped their household waste and the remnants of fires onto their fields, using them as #compost. Samples taken from the mounds suggest the farmers enriched the dirt with soil from nearby wetlands.
"The results indicate that ancestral Menominee people dedicated a lot of time and energy to agriculture in a remote area. The team has not found any significant settlement sites in the region—only a few small villages.
" 'It requires a lot of labor to create these fields, to clear the forest,' says Susan Kooiman, an anthropologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who was not involved with the research, to NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce. 'This is dense forest, now and then. To clear it, only with stone tools, is a lot of labor, a lot of work. … The amount of work, and just how far these fields extend, is beyond anything that I think people suspected was going on this far north in eastern North America.' "
#FirstNations #IndigenousHistory #Menominee #TraditionalFoods #TraditionalFarming
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A Comment on the Aquila Back Forty Wetland Permit
An Aquila Resources map outlines the wetlands that will be impaired by its open pit sulfide mine on the Menominee River.Earlier this morning, I sent this comment on the Aquila Resources Back Forty Wetland Permit to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Public comments may be submitted here until February 2nd.
To the MDEQ:
You have probably already received a number of comments on the Back Forty Mine wetland permit application from people who live out of state, as I do. Some of those opposed to sulfide mining on the Menominee River live on the Wisconsin side, just across or downstream from the proposed mine site. Others, across the country and around the world, are deeply concerned about the cumulative effects the current leasing, exploration, and sulfide mining boom around Lake Superior will have, and are alarmed to see federal and state regulatory agencies abdicating their responsibilities to the American public in order to do the bidding of foreign mining companies.
Denying the wetland permit is the only prudent and responsible course for MDEQ to take.
As the organization American Rivers noted when it placed the Menominee River on its list of “most endangered” rivers in 2017, the Aquila Resources Back Forty project poses a “significant threat” of acid mine drainage to the river, and to the “cultural and natural resources of the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, and the Great Lakes Region.” Allowing Aquila to destroy or compromise area wetlands to construct its mine will only heighten the risk of large scale environmental catastrophe.
The risk is compounded by both regulatory and scientific uncertainty. As you are well aware, the Menominee Tribe maintains that the MDEQ lacks authority to issue this permit, because under provisions of the Clean Water Act the Menominee River and its wetlands are federal waters. This question remains unsettled. In the meantime, a third party, independent review of Aquila’s wetland permit application found errors and inconsistencies regarding the company’s findings on groundwater drawdown and the mine’s feasibility analysis. The wetland permit application you are considering is either flawed, because the people who filed it are incompetent, or misleading, because they have something to hide.
Deceit might be Aquila’s best strategy at this point. The Back Forty project has no claim to social license — none. The Menominee and other Wisconsin tribes have been adamant in their opposition. Local residents are overwhelmingly opposed as well. Of the 90 people who had the opportunity to speak at the January 23rd public hearing in Stephenson, only 4 could muster an argument for the mine, mainly because they put stock in the vague promise of “jobs” made by mining proponents. The rest — 86 out of 90, or 95 percent — stood in opposition to the mine.
Even if Aquila is not deliberately misleading the MDEQ and the public, the Canadian company has demonstrated time and again that it is not a responsible steward of Michigan or Menominee lands. In archaeological surveys of the region, for instance, Aquila claims to have uncovered nothing of “historical significance.” That is telling. These surveys have found nothing because they fail, or refuse to see, the significant Menominee history and culture that is right in front of their eyes. As tribal members have made repeatedly clear, Menominee history, ancestry, and culture begin and end in the river, the land, and the forest. What is historically significant or meaningful is not merely a collection of artifacts; it is a way of life and a deep connection to place. The Back Forty Mine threatens to destroy that connection.
In sum, the wetland permit application is flawed, the company has no social license to operate, and allowing the Back Forty to go forward would violate the public trust.
Postscript: On Monday, 4 June, Michigan DEQ Director Heidi Grether granted this wetlands permit, despite the DEQ’s own findings that the Aquila Resources project will likely cause “an unacceptable disruption to the aquatic resources of the State…and that the activities associated with the project are not consistent with the permitting criteria for an acceptable impact to the resources regulated under Parts 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, and Part 303, Wetlands Protection.” The permit DEQ issued — over its own objections — includes 28 pages of special conditions. It’s unclear why the DEQ did not simply deny the permit, as its findings warranted and in keeping with EPA objections to the Aquila application. More here.
#AmericanRivers #AquilaResources #BackFortyMine #BackFortyProject #CleanWaterAct #culturalResources #environmentalStewardship #federalWaters #historicalSignificance #history #MDEQ #MenomineeRiver #MenomineeTribe #MichiganDepartmentOfEnvironmentalQuality #mining #mostEndangeredRivers #publicHearing #PublicTrust #UNDRIP #UnitedNationsDeclarationOnIndigenousRights #UpperPeninsula #Water #WatersOfTheUnitedStates #wetlands #WOTUS