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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Why should public waters suffer for private profit?

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As pointed out in last week’s edition, Minntac has been operating its tailings basin without a discharge permit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for 23 years – constantly in violation, polluting surface and ground water. Meanwhile, the effluent gets more toxic by the day. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is correct to apply pressure on the MPCA, though one wonders how much regional legislators bear responsibility.

US Steel is seeking permission to tap fresh water for the plant from elsewhere, and incredibly, the MPCA seems amenable to this dodge. That strategy would simply poison more water. The ultimate plan should be to mandate that US Steel construct a water treatment plant to process the existing water in the tailings basin. This was proposed a decade ago, but the company didn’t want to spend the money. Any entity that makes a mess while making money should be mandated to clean up the mess. Is that too much to ask? The water belongs to everyone, not just to the shareholders of US Steel. Besides, what happens to the 8,000-acre wasteland of the tailings basin when Minntac ceases operation?

When we’re also faced with the prospect of copper-nickel mining in the region, an industry whose trademark is the despoilation of water resources, it’s logical to wonder if the state of Minnesota is even capable of establishing and enforcing rules that will mitigate that problem. If history is any guide, it would be naive and absurd to rely upon a multinational extraction company to adequately police itself. Recall, that the waste from sulfide mining must be monitored and contained for 500 years. Frankly, with the Minntac episode in mind, that notion seems even more ludicrous than usual. If we are unable to protect water from taconite processing, how in the world will we deal with sulfide-bearing rock? At this point you have to think: not well.

As many scientists and economists have pointed out, we are entering the “century of water.” Never mind oil (or copper-nickel), the health of our communities – local and global – is utterly dependent on clean water. US Steel should not be allowed to discharge – on purpose or by accident – anything but clean water.

Peter M. Leschak

Side Lake, Minn.