You can listen to today's Environment Report above.
A Ready-Mix concrete company, McCoig Materials, wants to open up a mine on a site north of Chelsea. The two parcels of land they want to mine are in between the Waterloo and Pinckney Recreation areas. This part of southeast Michigan has a lot of little lakes and unique natural areas.
McCoig Materials wants to operate the mine for 22 to 30 years and remove 11 million tons of sand and gravel.
People who live on the lakes nearby have been raising concerns about that.
Mary Mandeville spends summers in her cottage at Island Lake.
“Just to the west of us is where the proposed gravel mine would be putting in their operations. We’re very concerned about the impact on the environment, on the water table level. We’re concerned about air quality with all the dust from the dumping of the gravel into the trucks.”