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MCEA attorney talks sulfide mining

Environmental advocate focuses on proposed PolyMet Mine at Ely’s Tuesday Group

Keith Vandervort
Posted 8/13/15

ELY – PolyMet IS sulfide mining, no ifs, ands, or buts.

This was the term used over and over in Ely this week by Kathryn Hoffman, staff attorney for the Minnesota Center for Environmental …

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MCEA attorney talks sulfide mining

Environmental advocate focuses on proposed PolyMet Mine at Ely’s Tuesday Group

Posted

ELY – PolyMet IS sulfide mining, no ifs, ands, or buts.

This was the term used over and over in Ely this week by Kathryn Hoffman, staff attorney for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, as she updated Tuesday Group on the PolyMet mining operation proposed on the doorstep of the million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

If permitted, the operation would be the first sulfide mine in Minnesota, and would set the precedent for any later mines. The project has been under environmental review for almost a decade, but final decisions from state and federal agencies may be happening as early as this fall.

“This term is controversial in some areas and I think it is good to understand what we are talking about and why we use this term,” Hoffman said to an overflow crowd at the Grand Ely Lodge.

Other terms used to describe the process include copper-nickel mining, hard rock mining, non-ferrous mining (popular in Minnesota to mean not iron mining) or strategic minerals mining (popular term in the mining industry).

This type of mining targets copper, nickel, palladium, platinum, gold, cobalt and other minerals and is not currently done Minnesota.

The term “sulfide mining” does not come from the target minerals. “We don’t mine sulfides, as people often say, it comes from what the minerals are imbedded in,” she said. “They are imbedded in sulfide ore. The full term is hard rock mining of metals imbedded in sulfide ore. That takes a really long time to say, so we’ve shortened it up to sulfide mining,” she said.

This term is not just used by some environmental advocacy organizations like the MCEA. “This term was introduced some time ago in Minnesota and has actually become pretty mainstream and is used occasionally by the DNR (Department of Natural Resources). The mining companies use this term as well,” Hoffman said.

At least one area publication recently ceased using the “sulfide mining” term in their reporting.

She described a map of the Ely area indicating the many areas of exploration for copper deposits that show PolyMet as the “tip of the spear.” Once the PolyMet project goes forward, there are other companies waiting in the wings with similar proposals. “Even though we are focused on this one project today, it is important to keep in mind that in terms of potential development we are talking about something much larger,” she said.

“PolyMet has been in environmental review for the past 10 years, which is kind of extraordinary,” Hoffman said. Environmental organizations like MCEA often get accused of using these reviews as a stalling or delaying tactic. “Personally, I think an environmental review has great value and I would never see it that way, but 10 years is a really long time for a review.”

The first Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the PolyMet proposal came out in 2010 and was so bad the federal Environmental Protection Agency gave it a “very poor” rating and explained that the project should not proceed as proposed and was “environmentally unacceptable.”

PolyMet tried again and it submitted a second draft in 2013. “That second draft received over 58,000 public comments (the previous record was 3,400 comments for the company’s first DEIS). MCEA categorized the comments and found that over 99 percent of those comments were opposed to the project. “So the public has spoken,” she said, “and yet the project continues to move forward.”

The DNR plans to release the final version of the EIS this November. Once that public comment period is complete, the agency has to make an adequacy determination. “This is not the same as approving the project,” she stressed. “It is only approving the environmental impact statement. They have to make the determination about whether the EIS adequately describes the risks and benefits of the project.”

After the adequacy determination is made, the data in the EIS is used to make decisions about permitting and other steps to allow the project to move forward.

According to Hoffman, the DNR is hoping to make their adequacy determination by February 2016. “That seems optimistic to me given that they’ll probably receive as many, if not more, public comments on the final EIS than they did on the draft (version),” she said.

The DNR is not the only player in the PolyMet project moving forward. “This is a unique situation where we have not only state agencies that have to approve this EIS, but also two federal agencies,” she said.

The Army Corps of Engineers will have to grant a permit because of the wetlands involved. The U.S. Forest Service will be involved because there is a land exchange component to the project.

“Those two agencies will have their own adequacy determination and they have not announced a target date for that,” she said. “I think it is safe to assume that it will take them longer than the state.”

Hoffman outlined the benefits and risks of the proposed PolyMet sulfide mining operation. That debate has raged in Ely for years and will continue as the proposal moves forward.

She explained recent news about PolyMet’s “significant” move forward in its plan. “They did announce a preliminary version of the final EIS, but the reality is that upon further inspection, it shows very few changes,” she said. “It adds 700 pages of responses to the 58,000 comments they received, but didn’t respond to comments on their problematic water model, there is very little mention of the Mt. Polley tailings disaster, and there is not a single financial assurance number.”

“In summary, MCEA’s position with the PolyMet plan is that it should be rejected. We think that the risks are too high,” she said. “If the permitting process starts next year, MCEA will sue to stop it.”