The debate continues over new forms of mining in northern Minnesota, the way it always does: dueling op/eds.
Deciding Iron Range issues via op/eds is like having zoning disputes being settled by a figure skating competition between Oksana Kryksstrkgghg and Svetlana Rokavrrrkgrrgh. What? What is going on? Who won? She did? Really?
What I’m saying is that the only people who read op/eds are those who write op/eds. That’s important, but in a limited context.
Here’s the current incarnation of the “VS” battle we’ve had over nonferrous mining in the Boundary Waters area of northeastern Minnesota. Kent Kaiser for the Center for the American Experiment (a communication instructor at Northwestern College in St. Paul) offers his take that nonferrous mining in northern Minnesota should happen for economic and environmental reasons. Today, Elanne Palcich, a retired teacher from Chisholm, offers her take on MPR’s Commentary site. She believes that nonferrous mining in northern Minnesota should not happen for economic and environmental reasons. I honestly believe you should read both and then form your own conclusion. (For and Against).
Central to this discussion are two key questions that I can’t currently answer. What are the real economic costs and benefits to this kind of mining in this kind of region? To what degree is our mineral past a reasonable solution to our economic future? On the other hand, what are the real environmental costs and benefits to this kind of mining in this kind of region? To what degree are clean water and woods a solution to our economic future?
They’ve been turning this one over for a few decades, so I don’t pretend to know the answer right here and now. I just know that everything on the Iron Range happens when those in power, through money or political influence, make it so. That is, except for the 10 percent of the time when the rabble makes enough noise, an importance difference from other places. But is this still true? In this regard it looks like, for the time being, we’ll be mining some stuff up in the woods. It looks that way. It will require great effort for that to change and whether it’s good or not is a matter that is not yet certain.
I do know that as long as we are arguing about a few hundred jobs on the corner of our region we are not dealing with the reality of losing a few thousand jobs over the past three decades. That I know. That’s our problem. That’s America’s problem.
I would be solidly in the “for” camp if it weren’t for one thing in Ms.Palcich’s commentary- concerns about diversifying the area economy. As a nearby outsider looking in at The Range, I can’t believe innovation and creativity, on the technical as well as artsy/woodsy side, would continue side by side with the new mining. It just looks like chasing home runs when a bunch of singles and doubles would be more reliable.
Toni Wilcox
“If you can’t grow it you have to mine it”. This quote used to be seen on stickers on hard hats and lunch pails around the area mines. . I think one of the blasting agent suppliers used to give them out.
The point is that if you want a viable economy that can support more than a handful of people you need to be doing something. Fishing, tourism, and looking at pretty trees are not going to support us. Agriculture (modern forestry falls under this one)and mining are big industries. They supply enough jobs and capital investment to keep our towns and governments functioning.
You can take away the mining (or chase it away) and northern MN will still be here. It just won’t have schools, or roads, or stores, or anything else.
C.O.
Agreed, mining can’t be replaced with tourism. There is no comparison between the kinds of low-pay, no benefit jobs tourism brings vs. what real industry brings with labor, engineers, technicians and scientists.
I guess my only holdup is the fact that we DO need to do something here to create jobs, something beyond tourism, and something beyond mining. I’d like to see a public policy and private industry focus on attracting businesses and individuals willing to do modern work in a nice place to live. And that is one argument for environmental preservation I am quite willing to entertain.
“First do no harm”. Every young doctor learns this in medical school. This admonition should be considered carefully by decision makers before they engage in an experiment in sulfide mining in the Arrowhead. When the risks of treatment for a patient are known and high, prudent clinicians don’t do the surgery or administer the drug. With so little data regarding the net long term benefits of sulfide mining in this region but with extensive data regarding the potential harm to the environment, including humans, that follows hard rock mining like your shadow on a sunny day, it seems to this observer that First do no harm” is the right prescription.
Aaron, your book title is fitting of what this type of mining will be for generations and generations—a huge overburden of water pollution, air pollution and physical pollution to human health. The same old mining rhetoric of doing it safe is B.S. Not one copper-nickel mine in the world has been in operation that has not caused irrevocable damage to the environment. Our water’s value is much more valuable than the low grade ores these foreign companies wish to mine. Plus, all PolyMet and other copper nickel companies will bring to the area is more of the same in the mining industry: an up and down economy. Why does everyone think more mines is the answer when we already have the largest taconite mine in the world in Mintac, yet the local townsfolk are barely hanging on? You know why? It’s called the Resource Curse. Don’t know what it is…just google: Resource Curse. You also state that tourism is not a “Real” industry. Last time I checked, tourism is a $11.2 billion dollar a year industry. Maybe tourism is not the answer in the area that you call home, but that is not a shock at all, considering that all the area of Hibbing is now a mine wasteland that no one really cares to visit. But hey, let’s do that same type of environmental destruction in the Babbitt and Ely areas!
All things in moderation, James. I fully understand your argument. What I don’t have is a road map to an Iron Range economy that exists without mining. Tourism is a huge industry, a huge service industry — with minimum wage cabana boy jobs. Tourism areas are weak, controlled by outside interests and real estate speculators. To some degree we’re already down that road here.
I think I can safely say that the proposed, theoretical jobs involved in the mining projects we’re talking about WON’T save the area’s economy. I think we agree on that. They could be part of a system that sustains an economic base while we figure out how to diversify.
I actually live in and around the “wasteland” you describe. I actually like it. There are some very nice areas to live not very far from mines, much nicer than most places — in my opinion. How do I, a resident and opinion leader, convince local leaders and voters that stopping this mining will help them? That’s an honest question. I don’t have a good answer.
Nothing like coming home from working all day at a mine, just to read someone calling the area a wasteland. I’m starting to think people genuinely don’t see the connection between their consumerism and mining. Willful ignorance and holy cow am I tired of it. I didn’t get a master’s degree in water resources science just to destroy it. I got it so that I could help industries reduce their impact as they produce the products that we all greedily consume. Sigh… Somedays I feel like I’ve been kicked in the teeth…
I find it strange. We have a company willing to invest in our area. It’s a company/industry which has potential to provide long term, high paying jobs. So what do we do? Instead of wooing them, embracing them, working with then to find a state of the art path forward, we fight ’em.
Wow…what a sad contrast to those areas which welcome new investment, new jobs.
Next thing you’ll hear is folks crying for an extension of unemployment benefit handouts from 99 months to 199 months.
Where’s the political, labor and civic leadership? I don’t see it…
Oops…Maybe we’ve got an elected offical who see’s the light. Let’s hold his feet to the fire. However, he’s only one man. We still need broad based local political, civic and labor support.
Cravaack focuses on PolyMet
By BILL HANNA
Executive Editor
Published: Monday, November 29, 2010 9:56 PM CST
VIRGINIA — Republican Congressman-elect Chip Cravaack intends to keep a public spotlight on the copper/nickel/precious metals PolyMet project that could create up to 400 permanent positions, 500 more spin-off jobs and 1 million hours of construction work.
“I will make sure to make contact with them (PolyMet officials) to see what they need and as a conduit to facilitate with PolyMet, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the DNR (Department of Natural Resources).
OK, OK. One man stands alone against the tyranny of liberals writing op/eds on their home PCs. (Well, probably Macs). You got your dig in, fine.
I get the point, but you do understand that this enterprise is a little different than Boeing setting up a giant rectangle building to build airplanes on the edge of town. This is uprooting a large pit (not unusual for the Range, but unusual for the specific area in question) with water runoff implications for the BWCA. I’m not saying you can’t do it, just that there are complications. These aren’t impossible complications, just factors that have delayed the permitting.
And yes, while we complain about this one project we do ignore the fact that people are consuming natural resources at an alarming clip. In so many ways it reminds me of the debate over the national budget. Two sides complain, neither side addresses the root concerns or reasonable solutions.
Ok, I give…
But…every company is a “little different”. The point is, WORK WITH ‘EM for God’s sake (yours too), find a path forward. If there is none, send ’em to Sioux Falls.
Having spent my life on the Iron Range, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Natural ore pits and “dumps” have been replaced by tailings ponds, dikes, crushed rock, and an open pit that might someday extend from Nashwauk to Hoyt Lakes. What we don’t see is the mercury in the air and the sulfates in the water, although we can see the haze over Minntac and the fish consumption advisory warnings.
Minntac’s tailings basin is leaching 4 million gallons a day of sulfates and metals into two watersheds–the St. Louis River and the Dark and Sandy Rivers north into Lake Vermilion.
We also don’t see all of the pollution coming from the accompanying coal fired electric plant (Clay Boswell). Minntac uses as much electricity in a day as all of Duluth and Superior in two days.
Taconite is 25% iron. Proposed copper nickel is less than 1% disseminated metals. Think of the Iron Range, only more waste rock piles, tailings, dikes, pits, and more contamination due to acid mine drainage.
PolyMet is only the first in line. Twin Metals (Duluth Metals/Antogasta) is doing a 3 year feasibility study along the South Kawishiwi River. Franconia Minerals has an adjoining deposit and has been drilling beneath Birch Lake. Permitting of these mining projects would wipe out the resorts and cabins that now occupy this area.
Over the past 30 years, the Ely area has built up its tourism business based upon the BWCAW and adjoining lakes. Refusing to permit copper nickel mining would not eliminate any existing mining jobs, but the permitting of copper nickel mining would eliminate all the existing jobs in tourism, recreation, and forestry.
The low grade character of the Duluth Complex of mineralization makes mining very marginal, dependent on the cost of energy and fuel in relation to the price of the metals on the world market. It’s only the mining companies and politicians that promise a complete economic boom.
As for our greedy consumer habits–if we don’t make some serious adjustments on our own, the unstable world economy and global climate change will make them for us. The future economy will be based on using our resources much more efficiently, including making them more durable and fixable. Google “The Story of Electronic” for ideas…
Having spent my life on the Iron Range, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Natural ore pits and “dumps” have been replaced by tailings ponds, dikes, crushed rock, and an open pit that might someday extend from Nashwauk to Hoyt Lakes. What we don’t see is the mercury in the air and the sulfates in the water, although we can see the haze over Minntac and the fish consumption advisory warnings.
Minntac’s tailings basin is leaching 4 million gallons a day of sulfates and metals into two watersheds–the St. Louis River and the Dark and Sandy Rivers north into Lake Vermilion.
We also don’t see all of the pollution coming from the accompanying coal fired electric plant (Clay Boswell). Minntac uses as much electricity in a day as all of Duluth and Superior in two days.
Taconite is 25% iron. Proposed copper nickel is less than 1% disseminated metals. Think of the Iron Range, only more waste rock piles, tailings, dikes, pits, and more contamination due to acid mine drainage.
PolyMet is only the first in line. Twin Metals (Duluth Metals/Antogasta) is doing a 3 year feasibility study along the South Kawishiwi River. Franconia Minerals has an adjoining deposit and has been drilling beneath Birch Lake. Permitting of these mining projects would wipe out the resorts and cabins that now occupy this area.
Over the past 30 years, the Ely area has built up its tourism business based upon the BWCAW and adjoining lakes. Refusing to permit copper nickel mining would not eliminate any existing mining jobs, but the permitting of copper nickel mining would eliminate all the existing jobs in tourism, recreation, and forestry.
The low grade character of the Duluth Complex of mineralization makes mining very marginal, dependent on the cost of energy and fuel in relation to the price of the metals on the world market. It’s only the mining companies and politicians that promise a complete economic boom.
As for our greedy consumer habits–if we don’t make some serious adjustments on our own, the unstable world economy and global climate change will make them for us. The future economy will be based on using our resources much more efficiently, including making them more durable and fixable. Google “The Story of Electronic” for ideas…
Please don’t compare old mines to new mines. There are a lot of old mines that have caused pollution problems. Old mining regulations and pollution controls were weak and ineffective.
Modern mining methods, regulations, and pollution controls work well. Take a look at the Flambeau Mine
in Ladysmith WI. This was a modern mine, permitted under the new rules. The mine operated successfully, has now been closed and the area reclaimed. The only evidence that it was there is a large meadow where deer graze. The trout still swim in the streams and life goes on as before.
Using old mines that caused problems with acid drainage as examples of how mining works is like using accident data from cars made in the 60’s to say that it is unsafe to travel on the highway (at any speed). Modern saftey regulations and rules work.
C.O.
In response to old mines vs. new mines (sulfide mining). I have been following this for 5 years, and spent the holidays last year reading through the PolyMet DEIS in order to make comments by the Feb. deadline. There were approximately 1200 pages in the DEIS.
The PolyMet DEIS was rated E-U, environmentally unsatisfactory, by the EPA, it’s lowest rating–and seldom used. The EPA comments matched those of us citizens and those of the Tribes and environmental groups. Bottom line: this mine will require perpetual water treatment.
The “new” process to be used by PolyMet (autoclave/hydrometallurgical/ Platsol process) was developed in order to extract very low grade ores. This process involves heat, pressure, and a slew of chemicals, including hydrochloric acid as a precipitate. The toxic plant residues will be layered with reactive tailings (acid producing). Even without acid drainage, copper and nickel from the disseminated ores that cannot be captured in the plant process will leach from the waste rock piles and tailings. This has been happening at the Dunka site for the past 30 years, from sulfide bearing waste rock that was excavated at the former LTV mine.
In addition, other metals and metaloids will leach from the finely ground tailings.
There are other environmental concerns, including air pollution, noise, loss of wetlands that have been designated as an Aquatic Resource of National Importance, loss of wildlife habitat, and loss of national forest land.
The Flambeau Mine is contaminating the ground water, but monitoring devices are placed far enough down river where the results are diluted.
At least some of the local people hired by PolyMet to promote this mine are set to receive $1 million bonuses if the mine opens. Some are receiving nice salaries now, from investor money. Their job is to promote the mine–that’s what they are getting paid to do. I have heard them say outright lies that are repeated by the media and politicians as the truth–statements such as none of the waste rock would be acid producing, when the DEIS states that all wasterock is considered as acid producing, and the waste rock piles are categorized as to the potential for acid production. In general the only wasterock that would not have the potential for acid production would be the glacial overburden.
So that brings us back to Aaron–and the possibility that there might be a better future for the Range than mining…
Yes, the pretty flowers blowing in the gentle wind present a lovely picture of a reclaimed Flambeau Sulfide Mine site in Ladysmith, WI. PolyMet points to the Flambeau Mine in Wisconsin as an example of successful reclamation some 13+ years after the mine closed. However, the Flambeau is polluting the ground water upstream of water monitoring sites, and to date there is no sulfide mine in existence that is not polluting the ground water. The fact is that sulfide mining is prone to pollution and very difficult to clean. Studies have shown high levels of toxic heavy metals downriver from the former Kennecott Flambeau mine and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that at least 40 percent of the headwater streams in western watersheds are contaminated where similar mining is occurring in states like Colorado and New Mexico. After permitting this polluting mine, the state of Wisconsin enacted legislation that added a requirement to applications for a permit to mine non-ferrous metals that the applicant show examples of a comparable mine that has operated for 10 years and another that have successfully been closed for 10 years without polluting the surrounding water. In the 13 years or so since this law went into effect there have been no applications. Why not? Perhaps because no such examples exist.
In an article by Bob Kelleher, MPR,” Wisconsin mine may hold key to controversial Minnesota project”, Laura Furtman, a member of the WI Resources Protection Council, says: “The reclamation at the Flambeau Mine site is grass over a grave.” The Flambeau mine was a fraction the size of what’s projected for the PolyMet mine. The Flambeau mine didn’t have the fine tailings that are known to generate all these problems with water pollution. Yet, even at the Flambeau mine site there is significant ground water pollution. It’s fine to see the plants that have been put on the surface,” Furtman said, “but it diverts attention from the main issue: what’s happening to the water.”
Attorney Glenn Stoddard of Wisconsin Resources Protection Council (WRPC) says, “The data from Kennecott itself shows that runoff from the Flambeau Mine is in violation of applicable surface water quality standards and is illegally polluting a nearby stream and the Flambeau River. The data also shows that groundwater at the mine site is polluted and, at a minimum, requires expanded monitoring. However, the DNR has failed to properly regulate FMC and has, instead, allowed the company to violate the law and portray the Flambeau Mine as an environmental success story when it is not.”
Citizens opposing metallic sulfide mining activities in Minnesota are concerned that Kennecott’s failure to protect water at the Flambeau Mine is indicative of any company’s ability to successfully operate and reclaim a metallic sulfide mine in a water-rich area such as what PolyMet is proposing.
What evidence is there that all tourism jobs will disappear if these mines are permitted?
It’s not just the pro-mining folks who engage in sabre-rattling rhetoric.
I’ll bet the folks in Ely would trade $10 an hour tourism jobs for $25 an hour jobs at the mine. How many Ely resort owners are employing anyone other than immediate family full-time, year-round? Do the bait shops have 401K plans? The downtown businesses are paying for health insurance for their workers? I bet not.
The locations of the proposed precious metal mining are not even in the same watershed as the BWCA, not to mention that due care and perpetual scrutiny will most certainly be assured through both gov’t and private oversight. I don’t know if people have been following the price of gold and other precious metals recently, but they are also almost assured to keep going up, and up, and up, given the fact that we can’t get our debt under control in this country. These jobs will be even more valuable than taconite jobs, which thankfully are in vogue again as well. Service jobs just reshuffle a fixed economic pie — an most of us are losing in the service economy. As stated above we need jobs — like agriculture, mining, and manufacturing jobs to actually make the economic pie bigger and bring quality of life and a middle class back. People who have no clue of watersheds and other pertinent information should not be making assertions about things which they are clueless about. It is easy, and the natural inclination, to be against something, but it’s also a cop out to live life that way. It’s much harder to actually study and learn facts, in order to develop an informed world view upon which objective, authentic decisions can be made.
Anonymous #18, your argument of people not knowing watersheds is irrelevant to this blog. You are not telling any of the posters anything we don’t already know. If permitted, PolyMet will directly pollute Lake Superior via surface runoff, just as Twin Metals (Duluth Metals), if permitted, will pollute directly into Boundary Waters via surface runoff. But, Anonymous #18, has it ever occurred to you that it really does not matter what watershed PolyMet is in, it still will pollute our water via underground? No one has a clue where groundwater goes as it makes its way through the billions and billions of cracks, fissures and underground rivers. Needless to say, no matter what part of northeastern MN you live in, your water will be affected in a negative way if the proposed sulfide metal mining with its disastrous track record of pollution all over the world gets permitted, either through the lakes and streams that you enjoy for recreation, or your drinking water…plain and simple.
If James K. is correct…we should send Polymet to Sioux Falls.
Although based on his comments, it sounds as though they’ll also pollute South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa and Canada, so they might not want them either.
So much for more copper wire to transmit power from our wind mills…Oh, they’re not spinning anyway, it’s too cold
Hopefully local politicians, civic and labor leaders will work side by side with this guy…Support from academia wouldn’t hurt either…
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=886799
James K. Anonymous #18 here. I guess we need to shut down copper mining in Arizona, Canada, and China and all other places in the world based on your arguments. I ask that you and I please turn in our cars (you do drive one I assume?), and we’ll just go with plastic alternatives made from oil mining instead, for our bikes and running shoes, and etc. etc. etc.
My point is that everything we use relies on mining (including the plastic and circuitry in the iPad you posted with and the Internet routers and servers your post travelled through and is still stored on). We (you) need to deal with reality to be sure. Proper technology and governance can enable much.
Also, you imply that I live in the area by your post. Don’t assume such things, as I do not. Twin Cities actually. I just care about the economy, the environment, AND people’s standard of living, while also having confidence that people will not allow the places where they live to be ruined.
All of you who say that it’s too dangerous to mine, please do some research on new rules/regulations. The days of ruining the environment are over. The EPA is playing their typical strong arm game, pay enough and you’ll get your permits. The Green Tree Huggers of the EPA make the mafia look like shoemakers when it comes to extortion. I know some folks at Polymet and they’re fed up with the EPA. When the area we live in and love goes the way of the buffalo, blame the tree huggers and spineless elected officials.
Sudbury
Sorry for the late post;
There are reasons other than the “sulfide mining is dangerous” argument to question these projects. First, the actual long term socio-economic impacts need to be explored. First, all the various public subsidies need to be counted, including the recent $4,000,000 “loan” handed over, most likely never to be truly paid back. There is also our public land, not to be used for millennia, if at all, the years of research at public expense, the various forms of “assistance” given over time and the list that goes on ad nauseum. In a real world, where public resources might actually matter, private groups might be forced to pay us, the public, for the right to use those resources for profit and then make sure the land is usable again within a certain time frame. Alas, we live in the illusory world where the state, the public and our resources are whored out to whatever private wealth group promises to employ a few local serfs, with local elites absorbing much of the crumbs. Th east range cities had one original problem; they existed solely for two projects which have ended or shrunk. We now have places where entire lives and landscapes are trapped on the periphery with over built infrastructure and debt. Thus, everyone is desperate for the gamble because no one can solve the problems without acknowledging the need for reductions, resettlement, and massive rehabilitation for the land and people. Instead, the locals, most of whom are trapped in a world view that they cannot leave, surrounded by a post industrial wasteland, will sell their very souls and more land in exchange for another 20 years of potential house payments and a large four wheeler. The investors, subsidized to their armpits, will take the wealth and leave the mess. The communities, 20 years from now, will return to the same place they are now only with more damaged land and a population even more desperate. I am one of the many reviewers for the EIS. and it essentially said this: “we are going to mine as we want, destroy 6,000 acres and impact two watersheds. Trust us because we are going to pay some people.” Their technical analysis was vacuous and in many places a complete fabrication. I will not delve into those details, but the reviewers aren’t a bunch of stereotypes chaining themselves to bulldozers. The reviewers are highly trained scientists, paid a pittance compared to the consulting engineers (milking the public for more)who when they see a lie, know it. That is why the EIS was refused. The DNR division, Lands and Minerals, is mostly a wholly owned subsidiary of whatever industry they happen to be promoting. I just spent an entire summer reviewing the garbage they claim as “reclamation” and “wetland replacement”, results so appalling they do not qualify as starting points, but instead require completely new start. These and many other reasons are why I am against the project.
You have shed a ray of sunnihse into the forum. Thanks!