December 2015 Newsletter
December 16, 201
Dear WRPC Member,
The final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for PolyMet’s proposed copper-nickel sulfide mine in northeastern Minnesota was released on November 6. The FEIS can be found at the Minnesota DNR site: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/input/environmentalreview/polymet/feis-toc.html The 30 day public review period for the 3,500 page document was originally set for December 14. No public meetings have been scheduled during the comment period. Due to public pressure, the comment period has been extended by seven days, ending on December 21, 2015 at 4:30 pm CST.
Comments can by submitted by email to NorthMetFEIS.dnr@state.mn.us All emails should include a name and legal mailing address. Comment may also be submitted to:
Lisa Fay, EIS project manager
Minnesota DNR Ecological and Water Resources Division
Environmental Review Unit
500 Lafayette Road, Box 25
St. Paul, MN 55155-4025
Approval would set a terrible precedent for the Lake Superior region
Minnesota environmental groups and Ojibwe tribes, including the Fond du Lac, Bois Forte and Grand Portage bands are asking people to match the 58,000 comments submitted in writing and at public hearings last year in response to the previous draft. The local and regional impacts of the mine would be disastrous and set a terrible precedent for future mine proposals in the rest of the Lake Superior region.
Minnesota’s first metallic sulfide mine?
Tribal environmental scientists and Minnesota environmental groups are agreed that PolyMet’s proposal is fundamentally flawed and poses unacceptable risks to Minnesota waters and communities. “PolyMet’s Final EIS does not indicate that metallic sulfide mining can be done in the water rich environment of Northern Minnesota without polluting our waterways for centuries to come,” according to Save Our Sky Blue Waters.
“The track record of sulfide mining in a water-rich environment like Minnesota is 100-percent failure,” says Paula Maccabee, WaterLegacy’s advocacy director and legal counsel. Aaron Klemz, spokesperson for Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness voices a similar concern: “This study doesn’t even try to answer what I think is the essential question Should Minnesotans engage in this project when we don’t have a track record of successfully operating a sulfide mine in a water-rich environment and not polluting waters?”
Polymet’s predictions of a safe mine based on faulty data
Polymet’s computer model predicted that contaminated mine groundwater would flow south through the St. Louis River/Lake Superior system. None of the state or federal agencies ran the computer model to verify the company’s findings. However, John Coleman from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) ran the model and concluded that the company’s model showed that contaminated mine water would flow north toward the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) and in much greater quantities than predicted by PolyMet (see article on page 3 from Mazina’igan: http://www.glifwc.org/publications/mazinaigan/Winter2015/index.html). The company denies Coleman’s findings and has accused Coleman of being an “anti-mining activist.” In the meantime, DNR officials haven’t ruled out the possibility that some water flowing from the mine could drain towards he BWCA.
“How, after 10 years of study, can we not know which way the water is going to go?” said Kathryn Hoffman, an attorney with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “It suggests that there is a lot we don’t know about the impact.” If the water flows north, it will violate the Great Lakes Compact, a binding agreement in which Minnesota is committed to not divert water out of the Great Lakes Basin.
What about polluted seepage from the mine?
“They’re claiming that their four-and-half square-mile tailings basin will collect 99.5 percent of all the seepage,” said Paula Maccabee of WaterLegacy. “That is the big lie on which this whole process rests. It is completely irresponsible for the current environmental review not to predict what happens to the pollution if that capture is not as perfect as PolyMet would like to hope.”
She said the mine waste will contain heavy metals and that the FEIS downplays the threat of mercury affecting developing brains of fetuses, infants and children downstream.
Other reasons to object to the PolyMet-NorthMet Mining Project and Land Exchange
There is no analysis of the cumulative effects of opening a sulfide mining district in the heart of Superior National Forest, and in the headwaters of both the Lake Superior and Rainy River watersheds.
The Superior National Forest Land Exchange is not in the public interest and should be rejected. The land was originally purchased for watershed protection. Changing ownership of the land from public to private would result in a subsequent loss of Federal protections.
The FEIS does not address impacts to downstream communities, including Duluth, Superior, and Fond du Lac. Cumulative health risks need to be evaluated. These include contaminated drinking water, mercury in fish, and release of asbestos-like particles.
The FEIS fails to adequately consider alternatives to minimize environmental harm, reduce polluted seepage from unlined permanent waste facilities, mitigate wetlands destruction, and reduce the threat of catastrophic dam failure.
For more information on the FEIS contact WaterLegacy.org or sosbluewaters.org
Stay tuned, Al Gedicks, Executive Secretary
