Soft landings for high-profile GTac mine personnel

Thought I'd catch you up on what some of the now-cancelled NW Wisconsin GTac iron mine's folks are up to these days.

*  Bill Williams, often in the news as the project's top dog when the proposed open-pit mine came and went just landed a suspended sentence and fine for having dumped arsenic in a Spanish water table while managing a mine there.

*  WI Gov. Scott Walker gave former GTac lobbyist company Bob Seitz a top job at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, PSC records show:

Executive Assistant to Chairperson Nowak
	Bob Seitz

In fact, Walker considered naming Seitz to the number post at the DNR after the incumbent  Matt Moroney, was moved to Walker's staff as a special assistant.

Seitz, also formerly a lobbyist for the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity had spoken on the mining company's behalf at some of the now-defunct plan's highest-profile moments.

Despite harsh criticism from two northern legislators and an outcry from anti-mining activists, a spokesman for Gogebic Taconite said Tuesday that armed, paramilitary-style guards will continue to patrol the site deep in the Penokee Range where the company wants to build a large open pit iron mine. 

Bob Seitz, a Madison lobbyist representing Gogebic, said the guards are necessary because of a confrontation between 15 to 20 protesters and an unknown number of mine workers a month ago. 

“The guards are going to stay,” Seitz said. 

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