NEXT STEPS:   Agencies are preparing a Supplemental EIS, expected some time in 2011.  It will include responses to the unprecedented 3,800+ public comments submitted by February 3, 2010.  It will be expanded to include the impacts of the proposed land exchange with the U.S. Forest Service.  And it will include the U.S. EPA, which has authority to veto the project, as a cooperating agency.

Send PolyMet to Summer School campaign

Thanks for your signatures supporting the summer petition campaign, requesting  the responsible government agencies produce a supplemental or revised draft EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) for the PolyMet mine proposal, complete with an additional public comment period, before proceeding to the final Environmental Impact Statement. 

They and the company haven't done their homework.  One must be very skeptical if this is indicative of the quality assurance they would offer residents that this toxic type of mining new to Minnesota will not pollute the valuable freshwater resources of the state and Lake Superior basin?

US EPA rates PolyMet Project & DEIS
"Environmentally Unsatisfactory" & "Inadequate"

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave its assessment  February 18, 2010 of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) published for the first proposed sulfide mine in MN: the PolyMet NorthMet copper mine.  The agency has given this low a rating to less than 1% of similar projects.

WaterLegacy is a citizens group dedicated to protecting our valuable lakes, rivers and streams by offering public education and advocacy.   In February 2009, WaterLegacy published comments highlighting risks and gaps in the environmental review (CPDEIS) documents of the first mining company to seek a non-ferrous (non-iron) mining permit in Minnesota.  WaterLegacy emphasized that according to its own EIS (Environmental Impact Statement), the proposed PolyMet sulfide mine could contaminate rivers and drinking water, increase mercury concentrations in fish, and contains no safe design for tailings dams and waste rock piles, which could result in catastrophic failures.  Substantive inadequacies persisted in the July, 2009 PDEIS.

MDNR released the contents of the Draft EIS for public comment October 28, 2009.  

The US EPA and other cooperating agencies also have expressed concerns about the current EIS documents.  (See agency comments, particularly those of the U.S. EPA and tribal agencies.)  In february, 2010, the EPA issued its worst rating of the Draft EIS.

It is prudent to ask the political question, whether we really want to sacrifice our water for jobs.  PolyMet promises to operate cleaner than woeful the industry averages.  So far, there is not enough proof in its own documents that its mine plan will be able to ensure that no pollution is released to the environment beyond its borders.  Indeed, it seems to ensure the need for thousands of years of water treatment to meet water quality standards.

The track record of sulfide mining demonstrates an enormous financial liability to state and local governments for proper water treatment and mine closure.  Across the country, mine plans and financial assurances have proven inadequate.   A quick internet search on “Acid Mine Drainage” +SuperFund reveals the prevalence of extensive and expensive problems with sulfide mines, including sites costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to remediate.  Even PolyMet and other project proposers admit that their sites will require treatment for decades, perhaps indefinitely, to meet water quality standards.

When faced with clean-up responsibilities and the vagaries of the commodities markets, mining companies all too often have filed for bankruptcy, leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill.

PolyMet has no record of having operated any kind of mine.  It is a Canadian penny-stock company with about 20 employees trying to push through a permit to mine.  But has not even completed the necessary land-exchange for the approximately 6,700 acres of public land in the Superior National Forest that it would require for its open-pit mine.  The substantial irreversible impacts to land, water, wetlands and habitat belong in the Draft EIS, but are missing, according to the EPA.

Citizens must remain alert to the real implications of allowing sulfide mining in general and in the trend-setting first case in Minnesota. The company has said in the media that it wants to comply with all of Minnesota’s “stringent” regulatory requirements.  However, it has been counting on an outright sale of public land through special legislation --  without the normal land-exchange process for federal public lands that includes public comment on the adequacy of wetlands replacement; it seeks to avoid water-quality discharge permits; its EIS is glaringly inadequate.

Furthermore, Minnesota’s laws and rules are no protection as long as giving variances to permit conditions is accepted practice.  And, yet, in the Minnesota legislature, bills have been introduced in 2009 and previous years that would exempt sulfide mines from an EIS all-together.   Indeed, citizens must remain alert to the pollution-permitting aspirations of each profit-seeing extraction company and to state agencies acting contrary to the public interest.