The Michigan Strategic Investment Fund board approved a $45 million grant to Highland Copper Company, Inc., and a related $5 million grant to the Goegebic County Road Commission, at the board’s Aug. 25, 2026, meeting.

This came after three earlier attempts to secure the funds fell through, starting in 2024 — twice as a grant and once as an earmark offered by state Rep. Gregory Markkanen (R-Hancock).

The board vote was 7-2 for the grant to Highland Copper subsidiary Copperwood Resources, Inc. The smaller grant to Gogebic County was approved unanimously.

“This $50 million investment represents an important milestone for Copperwood and a strong endorsement of the project’s potential to deliver meaningful economic benefits to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,” said Highland Copper CEO Barry O’Shea in a news release.

Highland Copper needs at least $425 million to build the Copperwood mine and bring it into full operation. The $50 million infrastructure grant is a critical part of the funding package, according to O’Shea.

“If we don't receive the grant, the viability from a financial perspective is incredibly more challenging,” O’Shea told the Strategic Investment Fund board prior to its Aug. 25 vote.

Highland is also angling for a $250 million loan from the U.S. Export-Import bank. The loan would come from the Biden-era Make More in America Initiative, which is designed to support emerging business enterprises that will produce at least some goods, commodities or services for export.

Highland has received a preliminary “letter of interest” from the Ex-Im Bank and is putting together a complete loan application, based on a project feasibility study that is scheduled to be finalized in the first quarter of 2027.

“And then through 2027, [we’ll] look to secure that into a binding debt product to prepare ourselves for 2028 construction,” O’Shea told the board at its meeting.

The Aug. 25 investment board meeting drew a large crowd of concerned citizens, in person and online. About 50 people lined up to speak in the meeting room, and 127 more registered to comment via Zoom.

Public input is normally taken at the start of the meeting, but the chairman moved the virtual comments to the end of the session, after the vote was taken to approve the Copperwood grants.

“The Michigan Strategic Fund Board today purposely dismissed the growing opposition to the dangerous Copperwood Mine project near the Upper Peninsula’s Porcupine Mountains by voting to approve $50 million in public funding before virtual attendees could make their comments,” the Michigan Sierra Club said in an online statement.

“Time and time again, people of the UP and Michiganders across the state have spoken up to oppose the Copperwood Mine project. To see so many of those voices silenced today angers and disappoints us, but also renews our resolve to protect the Porkies and Lake Superior.”

The vast majority of in-person and online commenters who spoke were opposed to the grants. Many virtual commenters dropped off after the grants were approved and the board meeting dragged on into its third hour.

"This is a very sad day for Michigan,” said Tom Grotewohl of Protect the Porkies, the umbrella group for mine opponents. “After being defeated three times through plain old democracy, Big Money used a loophole to sneak through the backdoor and steamroll over the will of We the People.”

“Nonetheless, the fight continues, and this setback will only serve to mobilize the movement against Copperwood to new heights. We will prevail."

Michigan lawmakers ended the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) program that was the original source of grant funding for the mine, primarily because it failed to deliver on its massive job-creation promises.

They preserved $50 million in a separate fund, the Regional Strategic Site Readiness Program, specifically for the Copperwood mine, using “leftover” funds from a 2022 project that didn’t materialize, according to a paywalled Aug. 25 Detroit News report. This was a direct budget appropriation that didn’t require any further legislative action to take effect, unlike the old SOAR grants.

The Copperwood mine would be located just south of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, and adjacent to the North Country National Scenic Trail near Wakefield, Mich.

Upper Peninsula lawmakers, economic development advocates and 22 local units of government have all lined up in support of the project, which is seen as a crucial opportunity to bring jobs and greater prosperity to an economically depressed part of the state.

The mine will deliver good-paying jobs to the community, fix the local roads and invest in Michigan’s infrastructure while bringing online a domestic source of copper – critical to national security and defense, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing and transportation industries – under some of the strictest mining and environmental regulations in the country, according to a news release celebrating the approval of the $50 million grant.  

“This is a great day for the U.P. and Michigan!” said Rep. Greg Markkanen (R-Hancock) in a state GOP web post. “The west end of the U.P. has been offering its support for this action for over 10 years, particularly the last four years. This is an answer to many prayers and hopes.”

“The western U.P. has faced economic devastation as state policymakers have forgotten the people they were meant to serve,” added Rep. Dave Prestin (R-Cedar RIver).

“This investment is a critical step toward the prosperous future our residents deserve. We refuse to be left in the dust by nonresidents and their political ideologies. I am proud that we are bringing this investment home for the western Upper Peninsula.”

The just-approved infrastructure grant reimburses the company for expenditures on site preparation and improvements necessary to support the development of the project. Highland must secure $150 milion in addition project funding, and must create a minimum of 380 qualified jobs, to be eligible to receive the state grant funds, the company stated in an Aug. 25 news release.

Highland added that a funding agreement still needs to be negotiated. According to its news release, “the Company and [the grant-funding agency] may not conclude a grant agreement, and the terms of the grant agreement may prove to be different than the parties’ current expectations.”

Highland plans the Copperwood project as an underground mine, with a processing facility and a 320-acre tailings disposal area on site.

The tailings impoundment is a matter of special concern to mine opponents. After 11 years of mine operation it would contain 40 million tons of mine waste, two miles upstream from Lake Superior, and would pollute the lake in the event of a leak or dam failure, according to mine opponents.

“This reckless underground mining project is all but guaranteed to leech toxic waste into Lake Superior in the event of a dam failure,” the Michigan Sierra Club said in an online statement following the vote on the infrastructure grant.

“This doesn’t just risk our precious fresh water resources, it endangers a nearly $360 million tourism industry that supports more than 3,000 jobs across the western Upper Peninsula.”

Mine opponents also warn that the project would bring air, noise and light pollution, heavy truck traffic and habitat fragmentation to an unspoiled corner of the Upper Peninsula, which is home to a diverse wildlife population and one of the last old-growth forests in Michigan.

A resistance camp was set up just south of the mine site on Aug. 14, and is expected to continue indefinitely.

"We have come to set up a place to come together and help spread the word about the mine and the horrible things that will happen if there's a leak or anything," said Charlotte Loonsfoot (Waabanong-ikwe), an Anishinaabe Ojibwe environmental activist who organized the encampment. "And I don't know any mine that has not leaked, especially copper and nickel."

As the name implies, the Copperwood has identified copper as its primary resource, with silver as a secondary product.

The mine facilities would occupy more than 500 acres and would impinge on lands where the Ojibwe have treaty rights to hunt, gather and fish on federal lands.

"This is our land," Loonsfoot said. "This is our our beautiful Mother Earth, and she provides for us everything that we need. Every plant on this on this Earth is medicine, and I work with medicines. And you know, what's going to happen if everything's polluted? All our animals and plants are going to die. Our water, all the fish, the little creatures in the water are going to die, and then we're going to die."

The encampment is an opportunity to educate the public about the proposed Copperwood mine, but it also has a broader purpose. It allows participants to connect physically and spiritually with the woodlands of the Upper Peninsula, and to strategize and build personal relationships that support long-term collaborations.

Research for this report was AI-assisted.