It’s getting easier all the time for a mining company to say it can follow the law, especially when the law is constantly tailored to suit their direct interests. Taconite mining operations in Minnesota have been violating water protection laws for decades, including a standard regulating sulfates, which kill wild rice stands. State Representative Tom Rukavina says “we don’t have any idea” what a safe level is but if the law is finally enforced, it will harm taconite mining corporations and new Canadian corporations trying to mine in Minnesota. Rukavina said the new sulfate standard should be 25 times what it is now. Read the rest of this entry »
Minnesota Further Weakens Laws Regulating Mining Industry
March 6, 2011
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Minnesota | Tagged: iron mine, Minnesota, mpca, native american, PolyMet, rukavina, sulfates, taconite, wild rice | 
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Duluth Metals-Franconia Merge as Regulation Weakens
March 6, 2011Twin Metals’ proposed mine, outside the Boundary Waters, is already expanding and will now benefit from weakened state regulation, featuring reduced permitting costs and speedy approvals.
Lawmakers and regulators held a meeting last week intended to help expedite PolyMet’s Hoyt Lakes copper project. The company’s draft Environmental Impact Statement earlier stood out for the EPA, which said it was one of the worst plans they had ever reviewed.
Nonetheless, lawmakers and the governor are intent on making it as easy as possible for the mining industry. Last week Governor Dayton signed legislation giving mining companies responsibility to do their own environmental assessments, similar to what Michigan’s “Part 632″ law allows. This allows a company to avoid the more stringent oversight offered by an independent federal environmental assessment. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Minnesota | Tagged: antofagasta, birch lake, boundary waters, Duluth Metals, Franconia, mining, Minnesota, sulfide, twin metals | Permalink
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PolyMet Drops Plan to Process at Hoyt Lakes Plant
February 3, 2011PolyMet Mining Corp. announced Wednesday that it no longer plans to produce finished copper metal at its planned processing plant near Hoyt Lakes, a move that will reduce startup costs by a fifth and the number of long-term jobs by a tenth. Read the rest of this entry »
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Record prices boost Minnesota’s copper-nickel projects
February 3, 2011from Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Kelleher:
Record prices for copper are helping to fuel controversial new efforts to mine the red metal in Northern Minnesota.
Copper set new records earlier this year and continues trading near record highs of over $4.40 a pound, pushing cash into northeast Minnesota’s developing copper-nickel projects. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Minnesota | Tagged: antofagasta, copper, Duluth Metals, hardrock mining, mining, Minnesota, PolyMet, sulfide mining, twin metals | Permalink
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More Revolving Door Action in Minnesota
January 25, 2011from Minnesota Public Radio:
Brad Moore, a commissioner for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency under Tim Pawlenty, has been hired to be a lobbyist for PolyMet Mining Corporation. Read the rest of this entry »
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PolyMet Caught Lying; Mine Plan Bad As It Gets
March 9, 2010In February, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a strong condemnation of the environmental review of PolyMet’s proposed NorthMet mine. The project, and its environmental review have been heartily endorsed by state and federal politicians, including US Senator Al Franken and US Representative James Oberstar.
According to EPA statistics, PolyMet’s “draft environmental impact statement,” (DEIS) is incredibly incompetent. Less than 0.4% of all such reviews obtain such a bottom-of-the-barrel rating.
Disturbingly, PolyMet’s amateurish DEIS was conducted by a firm working with Aquila Resources to develop a zinc-gold mine on the Menominee River, in Michigan. Read the rest of this entry »
3 Comments | Aquila, Law, Minnesota, PolyMet | Tagged: Aquila, EPA, Law, Minnesota, PolyMet | Permalink
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National Water Pollution on the Rise
March 3, 2010The latest from Charles Duhigg’s “Toxic Waters” series in the New York Times shows that, while Clean Water Act violations are rapidly rising, enforcement actions are declining at the same quick pace. Part of the problem comes from recent US Supreme Court decisions that have exempted many of the nation’s waterways from protection under the Clean Water Act.
Not many are getting the message. A recent editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune supporting PolyMet’s controversial NorthMet project claims that environmental laws are strong and are vigorously enforced. Only four days after the Tribune’s confident editorial, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a strong critique of the environmental review of PolyMet’s project, giving it the lowest possible rating, “environmentally unsatisfactory-inadequate,” and recommending the mine “must not proceed as proposed.” Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Health, lake superior, Law, Minnesota, PolyMet, water pollution | Tagged: lake superior, Law, Minnesota, PolyMet, public health, water pollution | Permalink
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Feds: PolyMet Environmental Review “Unsatisfactory”
February 23, 2010
US Senator and comedian Al Franken is one of PolyMet's staunchest supporters
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a strong critique of an environmental review of PolyMet’s proposed NorthMet mine, located outside of Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, and is recommending the mine “must not proceed as proposed.”
According to the agency, PolyMet’s project “may have substantial and unacceptable adverse impacts on aquatic resources of national importance.” The criticism comes months after a slew of state and federal politicians issued statements of support for the project, assuring the public and media the review was rigorous and the mine would not harm the environment.
In a December 9 support letter for PolyMet US Senator Al Franken told the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) the project should be approved:
“Throughout this multi-year process, PolyMet has done their due diligence and has faithfully followed the law. This includes providing all the necessary information for the draft environmental impact statement (EIS). The resulting draft describes the many steps PolyMet will take to minimize environmental impacts.” Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Minnesota, PolyMet, public land, water pollution | Tagged: Minnesota, PolyMet, public land, water pollution | Permalink
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Cliffs Cited for Extensive Minnesota Iron Mining Pollution
January 25, 2010
PolyMet plans to purchase this processing site; reportedly, Cliffs would maintain a roughly 7% stake in PolyMet's proposed NorthMet project
Three groups today announced their intent to file a lawsuit against Cliffs Erie, a subsidiary of Cliffs Natural Resources, for ongoing water pollution from previous taconite iron mining at three sites on Minnesota’s Iron Range. PolyMet Mining Co. plans to utilize two of the sites in order to dispose of wastes from its proposed metallic-sulfide NorthMet project. As part of a purchase agreement, Cliffs would maintain a roughly 7% stake in the project. The other Cliffs site, at the old Dunka Mine, is closer to Franconia Minerals and Duluth Metals’ proposed sulfide projects.
A news release issued by the Center for Biological Diversity noted that, “according to Cliffs Erie’s own monitoring reports, there are numerous ongoing violations of water-quality laws relating to management of the former LTV tailings basin. PolyMet’s proposal for its copper-nickel mine is to pile its own tailings waste on top of those from a former taconite mine that are still polluting.” Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Cliffs Natural Resources, Duluth Metals, Law, Minnesota, PolyMet, water pollution | Tagged: cliffs, Duluth Metals, Law, Minnesota, PolyMet, water pollution | Permalink
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Near Future Doesn’t Look Bright For Nickel
January 11, 2010Does nickel have a continued bleak future? Many miners and analysts seem to think so, while Rio Tinto still clings to its hopes to open a controversial massive nickel laterite deposit in Sulawasi, Indonesia and apparantly hasn’t yet given up hope on its nickel projects in Minnesota and Michigan.
The world’s largest miner, BHP-Billiton, may soon be leaving the nickel business in disgust after having to close, cancel and scale back a number of major nickel projects. Read the rest of this entry »
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