News

Duluth News Tribune
October 19, 2009

It's the economic salvation of the Iron Range. Or it's the poisoning of Northeastern Minnesota waterways. Or it's something in between.

A study of the proposed PolyMet copper mine by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to be made public this week, and the determination of which of the above scenarios it will support depends on who you talk to.

"This tells us the state has a handle on all of the issues and the parties involved and that the state feels comfortable moving forward," Frank Ongaro, president of the industry group Mining Minnesota, said of the draft environmental impact study. "And now, finally, everybody has to deal with the facts, and only the facts, on this issue. We'll all know what the facts are after this is out."

LaTisha Gietzen, vice president of public affairs for PolyMet, expressed similar optimism about the process she called "lengthy and thorough."

"The public can be confident that the draft EIS offers regulators the information they need to issue permits so that PolyMet can operate in a way that protects natural resources," she said.

But officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have questioned several aspects of the project and have asked for a 120-day comment period on report, rather than the usual 45-day period, to allow commenters more time to digest the information.

"We continue to have concerns related to potential impacts to water quality, wetlands impacts, mitigation and cumulative impacts to air and water quality," wrote Kenneth Westlake of the EPA's Regional office in Chicago, in an Aug. 25 letter to Army Corps of Engineers officials in St. Paul.

Westlake also questioned why the DNR and the corps were conducting a separate Environmental Impact Study for a proposed land exchange between Polymet and the U.S. Forest Service, saying the EPA believes that both aspects should be in one report.

PolyMet is proposing Minnesota's first copper mine that also would produce nickel, platinum and other valuable metals. The site of the proposed open-pit mine is near Babbitt, while the company would use the former LTV Steel taconite plant near Hoyt Lakes as a processing center.

The $600 million project would create 400 or more jobs for more than 20 years, digging and processing billions of dollars of high-value minerals. The project is seen as a critical step toward diversifying the Iron Range's dependence on iron ore mining and is the first of what could be a half-dozen copper mines stretching from the Ely area to Aitkin County.

Yet several environmental groups, tribal agencies and Northland residents are critical of the mine because of a long history of pollution at other copper mines worldwide. Opponents say sulfuric acid runoff, which occurs when sulfur-bearing rocks are exposed to air and water, could damage waterways in the area for centuries to come. Other concerns include wetland and habitat loss and an increase in mercury in local waters.

Three Ojibwe bands in Minnesota - Fond du Lac, Grand Portage and Bois Forte - have joined the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission in drafting joint comments on the environmental review. Earlier this year, the bands went as far as saying the PolyMet proposal doesn't meet state or federal environmental laws and thus can't be legally permitted to operate, claiming tailing basins are likely to fail and that water leaving the site - both on the surface and below ground - is likely to be contaminated.

"Tribal cooperating agencies note that, under the proposed project, this facility will need to treat water for hundreds or thousands of years to avoid contamination to the Partridge River," the band's comments noted.

The bands also criticize the corps and DNR for dismissing an underground mine option in the environmental review, saying, "The ecological costs of open-pit mining and above-ground disposal of tailings and waste rock are immense."

Company officials counter that the rock in the proposed mine area is extremely low in sulfur and that technology can be used to reduce or buffer acid runoff and keep it out of local waterways. They've also said an underground mine is impractical because the copper is so close to the surface at the proposed location.

The DNR/corps study is considered critical not just for the PolyMet project but also for several other copper mines proposed for Northeastern Minnesota.

"Decisions made for this project may be precedent-setting," the EPA's Westlake noted.

Environmental groups joined the EPA and last week made public their request to the corps to extend the usual comment period for the PolyMet EIS to at least 120 days.

Because this is PolyMet's first mining project, critics say the DNR and corps should have included a provision in the study on "financial assurance" - how much money PolyMet needs to set aside in advance to pay for any troubles, including long-term treatment of water.

Colleen Coyne, DNR spokeswoman, said that will be addressed when PolyMet applies for mining permits from the state.

"Financial assurance for ongoing treatment is addressed at the permitting stage, not the draft EIS stage," Coyne said.

But both the EPA and tribal officials disagree, saying cleanups at copper mines in the past have cost taxpayers because mining companies didn't set aside money to clean up problems.

"Given the history of adverse environmental effects resulting from some hard rock mines, and the expenditure of public funds used in some cases to address environmental problems caused by mining, EPA believes it is necessary to analyze" financial assurance issues during the Environmental Impact Statement phase of projects, an EPA newsletter noted in August.

After release of the PolyMet Environmental Impact Statement this week, the DNR's public comment period will begin Nov. 2, while the Army Corps of Engineers' public comment period will begin on Nov. 6 after publication in the Federal Register.

The DNR and Army Corps of Engineers will schedule two public information meetings during the public comment period, one in the Hoyt Lakes area and one in the Twin Cities. After the public comment period, the draft EIS will be revised, including agency responses to comments, and re-released as a final EIS. That process could take well into 2010.