News Room
Media Contact
WaterLegacy welcomes media inquiries.
Media Contact: Paula Maccabee, Executive Director and Counsel
Phone (office): 651-646-8890
Phone (cell): 651-775-7128
Email: paula@waterlegacy.org
WaterLegacy in the News
To protect wild rice, Minnesota moves to cut off pollution from taconite basins
The Minnesota Star Tribune | July 27, 2025
“Many tailings basins today are complexes of multiple cells. Interior dikes criss-cross open water and solid expanses of brown and yellow tailings.
In more than one case, these tailings basins are relying on plans and environmental studies from decades ago to continue their expansion. That’s happened at Milepost 7, a Cliffs-owned basin. Concern that the basin’s dams could fail has spurred two lawsuits from the group WaterLegacy. As a result of one of those suits, a court ordered the DNR last year to consider redoing the environmental impact statement from 1976.
As these basins expand, state permitters at the DNR “simply will not look again at the scientific facts,” said Paula Maccabee, executive director of WaterLegacy.”
Draft permits would require Keetac meet sulfate standard by 2030
Duluth News Tribune | July 17, 2025
“Paula Maccabee, executive director and counsel for WaterLegacy, told the News Tribune that it was “a good thing” the variance was denied and that the MPCA did not jettison wild rice standards when drafting the permit.
Still, she wants to make sure there is a plan for enforcement.
“There needs to be action on the ground,” Maccabee said. “I like the paperwork, but paperwork is not going to reduce sulfate or restore fish habitat.””
Developments coming soon for NewRange
The Timberjay | July 2, 2025
“[WaterLegacy Executive Director and Counsel Paula Maccabee] added that it will likely be up to Minnesotans to determine whether the process moving forward has substance to it. “There is no federal safety net any longer. That means it will be up to us to protect what we have here in Minnesota. I think the real question is whether state regulators will adhere to the science or whether they will let the federal pressure from power and money hold sway.””
Supreme Court denies U.S. Steel’s request for review of sulfate ruling
The Timberjay | July 2, 2025
“While environmental groups saw the ruling as a victory, the reality is that the Keetac plant has continued to violate its sulfate standard since requesting a looser rule more than a decade ago. According to Paula Maccabee, head legal counsel for Duluth-based Water Legacy, the plant’s discharge has averaged about 34 mg/l of sulfate in recent years. “If you apply the real standard, they are violating the rule. But there has not been any enforcement action because this has been hanging out there,” Maccabee said.”
Environmental group sues over tailings basin expansion
Duluth News Tribune | June 30, 2025
“In a June 16 lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Northshore Mining Co., WaterLegacy alleged that Northshore, which is owned by Cleveland-Cliffs, violated the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act by allowing construction before the project’s environmental impact statement process was complete.”
“WaterLegacy also included a June 10 drone photo that shows considerable construction and extensions had already been made on the basin’s north dam wall compared to a satellite image taken five years earlier.”
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