State and federal regulators have agreed to develop a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed NorthMet mining operation near Hoyt Lakes— a move that could delay completion of a new draft EIS for at least a year.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, along with the U.S. Forest Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will jointly prepare the new EIS, which will consider the environmental effects of the proposed mining operation as well as actions to mitigate those effects.
A supplemental draft EIS is needed in order to include analysis of the potential impacts of a land exchange between PolyMet and the U.S. Forest Service, to evaluate new information and to develop new alternatives related to the NorthMet project, and to make the results of new analyses available for public review. The agencies have determined that this path is more efficient than having the U.S. Forest Service develop a separate EIS for the land exchange.
The future of the PolyMet’s environmental review process has been in doubt since earlier this year, when the Environmental Protection Agency gave the project’s draft EIS an “Environmentally Unsatisfactory-Inadequate” rating, one of the poorest ratings the federal agency can give to an EIS.
The state and federal agencies that issued the EIS have met several times to discuss issues related to the supplemental draft EIS, and to identify the best path forward in completing the EIS. These meetings have strengthened the partnership among the state and federal agencies involved in completing the NorthMet EIS, according to a DNR press statement issued this week.
This cooperation is demonstrated by the inclusion of the U.S. Forest Service as a co-lead agency and the EPA as a cooperating agency through the completion of the EIS process.
The supplemental draft EIS will:
‰ Fully incorporate the proposed land exchange between PolyMet and the U.S. Forest Service, Superior National Forest.
‰ Develop and incorporate additional project modifications, alternatives and mitigation measures to minimize environmental impacts.
‰ Provide clear descriptions of alternatives and mitigation.
‰ Consider EPA and other public comments and recommendations.
The supplemental draft EIS will be a fully revised document. It will build on the draft EIS and combine and simplify the two separate project and land exchange EISs. The supplemental draft EIS will provide appropriate public disclosure, include at least one public information meeting, ensure compliance with federal and state environmental review laws and regulations, and provide an effective and efficient process.
The agencies have made significant progress in reviewing the more than 3,700 comments received during the public review period for the draft EIS that ended in February. The agencies continue to evaluate new ideas for project alternatives and mitigation, and are planning additional studies and analyses.
I have been a supporter of copper-nickel development in our area. Where I have a problem is with the content of the Environmental Impact Statements. These documents are just words, intended and probably well meaning, to minimize the environmental impact of the mining and processing process. The EIS more than likely covers assurances, to the letter of their content, that "things" will be safe as we move forward.
Those documents don't deal with the possibility that things won't be safe. They are dependent on the Mine Managers to execute them to the letter and extent of the meaning and words. The problem with PolyMet is, the management staff they hired and have allowed to clear these hurdles, are U.S. Steel veteran managers. Anybody who has worked at a U.S. Steel facility on the Range knows full well, rules are made to be broken, production comes first, "safety first" only if it doesn't cost too much. A lot of environmental and safety rules at U.S. Steel get ignored in the dark of the night, such as cranking up the agglomerator waste gas fans, fines crusher thickener overflows, chemicals such as glycol, amines and oils sent into the process water system, (which U.S. Steel tried to dump into the Sandy River-Lake Vermilion watershed or the West Two Rivers-St. Louis River-Lake Superior watershed). Just to mention a few. Employees were discouraged from calling MSHA and reporting unsafe conditions by Jim Swearingen, then Minntac General Manager, and were told to report them to his management staff first. Blacklisting ensued for those who failed to follow his orders, while they had a legal right to report these to MSHA. Firings resulted. Swearingen is on the board of directors of PolyMet and hired Joe Scipioni, former U.S. Steel Division and Plant Manager as CEO of PolyMet.
These guys don't obey the law, they spent a career circumventing it, and buying their way out of it with lobbyists and political clout. Whether in environmental compliance, corporate governance, or employment law. They came out of a corporate culture where they get their way, in spite of regulations or laws, and act accordingly because that is why they had attorneys on staff.
Copper-Nickel mining and processing is unforgiving if mistakes are made. Those guys can probably sleep good at night, making money personally in the high 6 figures. But what about the rest of us that are at the mercy of their judgement? Many people's lives have been negatively affected by these people, in fact, once Swearingen became General Manager of Minntac, he got an unlisted telephone number. He was still on the Virginia School Board, and when residents wanted to get a hold of him, the School Board Business Office told them to call him at Minntac. All this while, he had his managers issue discipline to wage & hour employees who accepted or placed personal phone calls on the company premises. Yet he felt priviledged to do the same, as a U.S. Steel employee. Do you think for one minute, he will not look the other way if things go wrong at PolyMet?
I recommend that regulators perform their due diligence expeditiously, since people and our communities are hurting up here and need the jobs, but require PolyMet to change the personnel it has put in place before any permits are issued. If we don't insist on this action, we may very well pay the price for generations to come, since I doubt the integrity and sincerity of PolyMet's existing management team. And I am will to believe a former mining company employee from Soudan would agree with me on this assessment.
To supplement the new EIS, an unbiased computer model assessing Polymet's proposed new technology safeguards would be useful. Is it possible for the U of M to do that?
What if the new EIS gives Polymet a green light? Wouldn't we still be relying on the company's modeling that, apparently, shows the new technology safeguards are failsafe? I think we need an unbiased third party model that proves or disproves the capabilities of the new, untested, technology.