WISCONSIN

Former mine chief pays fine in Spain

Lee Bergquist
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Bill Williams, the former president of a mine planned for northern Wisconsin, received a suspended sentence of 12 months by a Spanish court while he was employed as a mine manager in Spain between 2006 and 2011.

Williams and two other directors of a mining company, Cobre Las Cruces, were given the suspended sentences after acknowledging the allegations against them before the case went to trial, Sharon Loung, director of First Quantum Minerals, said in an email.

Quantum bought the mine in 2013.

Loung also said Williams and the others agreed to a fine of approximately $7,500. Cobre Las Cruces had previous paid Spanish authorities about $325,000 for violating environmental laws, she said.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that a court in Seville announced the fines for polluting a public drinking water aquifer with arsenic between 2005 to 2008. The case ends a battle over mining activities with a Spanish environmental group, Ecologists in Action.

The group claimed that Cobre Las Cruces pumped groundwater from the mine to ensure it would not flow back into the pit. The water returned to an aquifer on the same property, polluting groundwater.

Williams oversaw Florida-based Gogebic Taconite while the company conducted preliminary work for an iron ore mine in Ashland and Iron counties.

In February 2015, the company said it was shutting down operations, concluding harm to wetlands made the prospects of building the $1.5 billion mine unfeasible. The company also expressed worries that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency might step in and reject the project.

Williams could not be reached for comment.