Environmental activists protested the mining industry on Wednesday while hundreds of people gathered for the annual mining conference at the DECC in Dululth.

The ‘No Sulfide Mining Group’ emerged in February in response to a proposed copper-nickel mine in Minnesota. If it’s approved, it would be the first of its kind in Minnesota.

While the group focuses on preventing the proposed PolyMet mine, they’re also against the proposed four-mile-long open iron ore pit on the Penokee-Gogebic Iron Range in Iron and Ashland Counties. ‘No Sulfide Mining Group’ member Carl Sack of Duluth opposes the Gogebic Taconite, LLC expansion.

“A massive new open pit mine with serious potentially severe impacts on the recharge zone of the Penokee aquifer and the Bad River watershed. I have major concerns about the environmental safety of that mine. The industrial zone of the Northwood’s which relies on tourism, farming, clean water, and wild rice,” Sack said.

‘No Sulfide Mining’ spokesman Bob Tammen of Soudan worked on the Iron Range in the late 60s. He says he saw millions of gallons of hazardous waste leak from abandoned iron ore ponds. He says the environmental aftermath of the Gogebic Taconite mine would hurt the economy in the long run.

“We have difficult economic times. We need jobs. A lot of times this is posed as a conflict between jobs and the environment. The mining industry does not create jobs the way it once did. Productivity doubled in my working lifetime. It only takes half as many employees to produce the same amount of ore,” Tammen said.

Although the group opposes the Penokee iron mine, its members commend the willingness of Gogebic Taconite to listen to the community which Sack says is much more open compared to Minnesota mining companies.

“So far in Minnesota that process has remained extremely undemocratic. In Wisconsin they have a different approach which allows for public input via a real public hearing. You get to get up on a microphone in front of your peers, in front of the general public in a room with officials and the public gets to comment on a project,” Sack said.

Sack and Tammen hope to raise awareness about the affects of mining so that more sustainable practices can drive the resource economy.

On the hunt for copper and other valuable metals, five exploration companies hope to prospect on 44,000 acres of the Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area over the next two decades.

The details of their plans are described in a draft environmental review released last week by the U.S. Forest Service, which is seeking public comments on it.

If ore is discovered, it could bring new mining projects to the national forest — a prospect that worries environmentalists and has been cheered by economic development officials in northern Minnesota.

The exploration is driven by high metal prices and hopes of finding copper, nickel, platinum and other ores in the heart of a geological formation called the Duluth Complex in Minnesota’s Arrowhead region. If all 44,000 acres are explored, it would represent more than double the area previously prospected in the formation, industry officials said.

. . .

Encampment Resources, based in Atlanta, wants to prospect on 18,100 acres of the forest. Twin Metals, a joint venture with Duluth Metals, is interested in 5,700 acres, and Prime Meridian of Calgary, Alberta, has applied to explore 720 acres. Lehmann Exploration applied for 3,140 acres.

All have waited five years for Superior National Forest to complete its first environmental study of prospecting. It found no major problems, and estimated that prospecting would temporarily disturb about 186 acres a year. Drilling rigs would need up to 860 miles of temporary roads over 20 years, and drill noise could reach some BWCA campers, the study found.

Environmental groups say mining in sulfide ores poses a pollution risk to waters leading to Lake Superior and the BWCA, a subject not included in the prospecting review.

“It is by far the biggest environmental concern in the state right now,” said Marc Fink, a Duluth attorney who pressed the Superior National Forest to conduct the prospecting review while on the staff of the nonprofit Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. He now works for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has challenged the PolyMet project.

. . .

“We have a decision in the future, which is kind of a risk on the companies’ part,” said Loretta Cartner, a Forest Service geologist who headed the study. “They are spending all this money on exploration, but they are not guaranteed they can move to a lease.”

Cartner said the environmental study should be completed by the end of the year. Permits could be issued after that, unless the agency’s actions are appealed or challenged in court, she said.

from the Duluth News Tribune:

State Rep. Tom Rukavina said Friday he will introduce legislation to roll back state standards for sulfates in lakes and rivers where wild rice grows, saying the current standards could prevent mining projects from moving forward and even thwart existing mines.

Rukavina, DFL-Pike Township, said lawmakers and even many state regulators were unaware of the 10 milligrams per liter standard for sulfates in wild rice waters, set in 1973, and that the standard could be impossible for Iron Range mining operations to meet — existing taconite mines as well as future copper mines and steel projects.

Rukavina said he is considering using the 250 milligrams per liter state standard for drinking water in his legislation because there is little or no science to defend the strict 10 milligrams limit.

“Nobody knew about these rules. No one from PCA even knows how they got on the books. And there isn’t any science to back them up,” Rukavina said. “I’m going to bring everyone together and reach some sort of compromise (sulfate) level that will work for the mines.”

Environmental groups and Ojibwe tribal officials say the current standard should be enforced to prevent damage to wild rice, especially from wastewater discharges from mining operations, including the proposed PolyMet copper mine near Babbitt.

Sulfates are mineral salts containing sulfur that can come from decaying plants and animals as well as some industrial processes such as mine discharges, tanneries, steel mills, pulp mills and textile plants.

High sulfate levels are known to damage aquatic plants and are suspected of damaging seeds, which are critical for re-growth of wild rice. But it’s not completely clear how much sulfate is too much. Minnesota has seen generally declining wild rice stands, PCA officials note, but there may be no single culprit.

Rukavina said water in natural ore mine pits in some areas of the Range contains more than 80 milligrams per liter sulfate, while water from southern Minnesota agricultural areas is as high as 800.

“We don’t have any idea what the (safe) level (of sulfates) is for wild rice, and this is going to shut down our mines if we don’t change it,” Rukavina said, noting the issue already is slowing efforts by Mesabi Nugget to produce taconite at its iron plant near Hoyt Lakes. “The mines can’t de-water their pits under these standards. The standing water is higher than the regulation.”

The sulfate issue already is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and mining interests in December against the state regulation.

PolyMet officials are publicly trying to stay outside the fray, saying they can abide by all existing state environmental laws.

“Whatever standard is on the books, we’ll meet it,” said Brad Moore, PolyMet’s vice president for environmental and government affairs. “That said, we do think the current standard should be revisited.”

Moore said PolyMet supports Gov. Mark Dayton’s effort to include $1.5 million in his 2012 state budget to fund a PCA study of what sulfate levels are acceptable for healthy stands of wild rice. But Moore conceded that study “is probably a several-year effort” for field work to reach scientific conclusions.

PolyMet will continue to move forward with the current environmental impact statement and eventually the permitting process under the current state regulation.

Even if the state rolls back sulfate standards, the federal government may step in to uphold them. PolyMet supporters conceded that the Environmental Protection Agency probably won’t accept new air or water quality permits issued by Minnesota with the reduced standards without scientific evidence to support the change.

Moore, former PCA commissioner, noted that there have been site-specific exceptions made on the sulfate standard. Minnesota Power’s Clay Boswell powerplant on the Mississippi River near Grand Rapids, for example, is allowed to discharge higher levels of sulfates than the current state standard.

Rukavina also said EPA officials have been unclear about when and how they will require a trust fund for mine cleanup from PolyMet. The federal agency was highly critical of the state’s plan to allow PolyMet to wait until after the environmental review process to negotiate an environmental cleanup trust fund. Federal regulators wanted the fund amount established as part of the Environmental Impact Statement currently under way.

The EPA currently is developing financial assurance rules for all mining projects that would require money be set aside before permits are issued to cover any water treatment and cleanup costs associated with mine waste after mines shut down and companies move away or fail.

EPA “wants this for all hard-rock mining going forward,” Rukavina said. “We asked the question three times (on how it will affect Polymet) and I don’t think we got a straight answer.”

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.

from the Star Tribune:

A mining industry merger that won stockholder approval Thursday sets the stage for developing a vast underground mine near Ely, Minn., to extract one of the world’s richest deposits of copper, nickel and precious metals.

Franconia Minerals Corp. stockholders voted 88 percent in favor of the $75 million takeover by Duluth Metals Ltd., giving it control of mining rights beneath more than 25,000 acres in northern Minnesota — deposits estimated at 1 billion tons that could take decades to extract.

“This puts in place the scale and the resource that will allow us to build a 21st-century mine that can meet all the requirements that our society puts on an industrial facility,” said Vern Baker, president of Duluth Metals, who asserted that the mine’s design will protect the environment.

The project’s environmental review is sure to be contentious because the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness and other groups say that sulfide mining — so named because of the form of the deposits — will pollute waterways in northern Minnesota’s wilderness.

“What it does is create a mining juggernaut at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area,” said Betsy Daub, policy director of the advocacy group based in Minneapolis. “We are beginning to see an appropriate level of concern because these mines have never been known not to pollute.”

Antofagasta PLC, an international mining company based in Chile, earlier invested $130 million and took a 40 percent stake in a new joint venture, Twin Metals Minnesota, that expects to complete its first mine feasibility study next year, Baker said. Additional feasibility studies and an environmental review will takes several more years, he added.

The project got another boost Thursday when Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill to reduce the cost and time of environmental review and permitting. In a statement, Twin Metals said the new law will help “to create new Minnesota jobs more quickly, while continuing to adhere to Minnesota’s strong environmental standards.”

Read the rest at the Star Tribune.

Prime Meridian Resources announces that it has entered into a Letter of Intent (“LOI”) with Wolfden Resources, a private company, to conclude a joint venture for the Winterfire project, located approximately 50 kilometers west of the town of International Falls, in Minnesota.  A drill program budgeted at approximately US $400,000.00 with a minimum of three holes and 2,000 feet is planned to begin this week.

For more information, view the news release at Prime Meridian’s website.

PolyMet 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.

“The changes to the project improve the overall economics of the project while reducing environmental impacts,” PolyMet President and CEO Joe Scipioni said in a news release announcing the change. “The project will create approximately 360 long-term, well paid jobs compared to the project’s original estimate of 400 workers.”

PolyMet had planned to produce copper metal, nickel-cobalt hydroxide and precious metal precipitate products. Under the change it will still produce the last two but not copper metal. Instead it will produce and sell high-grade copper concentrate.

The change means the company will have to buy and install less equipment. According to the company’s 2008 cost estimate, the equipment it will no longer buy accounted for approximately $127 million of the project’s $602 million price tag.

The change will also lower energy consumption and reduced waste disposal and emissions at site.

Read the rest at the Tribune.

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.

PolyMet Mining’s Hoyt Lakes project just got a $30 million Canadian cash-for-stock infusion from Swiss-based mining concern Glencore AG. A separate copper-nickel project near Ely drew a $77 million Canadian buyout.

The high prices also have boosted business for companies like Superior, Wisconsin’s TLK Industries, where a mechanical press slowly compacts a spaghetti-like pile of used copper wire. The strands come out in a rectangular block held together by metal bands. The company will receive about $15,000 for a 4,000-pound shipping container of copper.

TLK Industries owner Andy Karon said metals like aluminum and steel are doing well too. But the amount he can pay for scrap copper has soared.

“Percentage wise, copper is really doing the big thing,” Karon said. “We’re paying four times what we were paying two years ago for the exact same material.”

The surging world-wide demand for copper, which has surged ahead the world’s supply, will keep copper prices high just as the demand for gold sparked prices last year, said Tony Barrett, an economist at Duluth’s College of St. Scholastica.

“The fundamentals are there for higher prices from a year or two ago, and for that to be sustained,” Barrett said. “That’s why these companies are going ahead with their projects in northern Minnesota.”

Used widely in electrical transmission, manufacturing and housing, copper is considered a bellwether of economic activity. Developing economies in China, India and Brazil are driving world demand.

University of Minnesota-Duluth economist Jim Skurla agrees that continued strong prices are likely. But he said some observers are starting to question whether current prices are sustainable.

“Are we looking at another bubble, just like we saw in the housing market?” Skurla asked. “The possibility of a copper bubble is definitely out there.”

Read the rest at MPR by clicking here.

Brad Moore, a commissioner for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency under Tim Pawlenty, has been hired to be a lobbyist for PolyMet Mining Corporation.

“I’ve been working with Brad during his tenure at Barr,” PolyMet’s vice president of public, governmental and environmental affraise said in a news release. “His existing knowledge of the project and the process mean that he can step in immediately to effectively help the environmental review and permitting process move forward to completion.”

Moore was commissioner of the MPCA from 2006-2008 under Tim Pawlenty. He also worked for the Department of Natural Resources before that.

PolyMet has been lobbying heavily to get approval to mine copper and nickel in northeastern Minnesota. The plan has been slowed down as state and federal officials question the environmental standards of the proposal.

Moore’s most recent position was with Barr Engineering as Senior Advisor, Public and Governmental Affairs where he advised several companies, including PolyMet, on environmental strategy.

Moore’s hire will again draw criticism from some state lawmakers who complain that legislators and commissioners are personally profiting from the so-called revolving door.

Duluth Metals Ltd. and Franconia Minerals Corp. announced an agreement today under which Duluth Metals will acquire 100 percent of Franconia’s outstanding common shares.

If the agreement — valued at Canadian $76.7 million in cash and stock — is approved by Franconia shareholders, Franconia’s assets will be transferred to Twin Metals Minnesota LLC — a joint venture company consisting of Minnesota-basedDuluth Metals and Chile-based Antofagasta.

Franconia’s principal assets are a 70 percent interest in the Birch Lake, Maturi and Spruce Road mineral deposits in Northeastern Minnesota. Twin Metals assets include the Nokomis deposit, where exploratory drilling has reportedly found vast deposits of copper, nickel and other precious metals.

Some of Franconia’s Northeastern Minnesota’s deposits and land holdings are contiguous with those of Twin Metals, and the sale will consolidate Twin Metals’ position in the area and increase the company’s overall qualified resources to more than 1 billion tons.

“Duluth Metals’ potential acquisition of Franconia is exciting news for the vibrant future of copper-nickel mining here in Minnesota,” Twin Metals CEO Juan Andres Morel said in a news release announcing the agreement.

“Combining these contiguous properties and mineral assets under common ownership will allow for a larger scale, more efficient and synergetic development of future mining projects — providing more Minnesota jobs more quickly, with a more efficient joint state/federal environmental review process and greater environmental protection.”

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.  In December Al Trippel, an environmental consultant with Environmental Resources Management, gave a presentation on PolyMet’s DEIS that outlined environmental concerns related to the review as well as unrelated information claiming the project would benefit the regional economy.  Trippel has worked with Aquila as a consultant since at least 2004 and conducted studies necessary for that company’s own environmental impact statement.

From the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness (March 5):

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency gave the PolyMet mine draft environmental impact statement the lowest possible rating the agency can assign such a document. Citing incomplete work and unacceptable pollution, the EPA assigned the project its “Environmentally Unsatisfactory – Inadequate” rating.

The rating highlights the extraordinary threats represented by the mine to clean water. The agency does not assign such ratings very often. In the past 23 years, the EPA has reviewed 11,834 EISs and gave the rating it gave to PolyMet to only 41, or 0.3 percent. In the upper Midwest region, the agency gave the rating to just 0.2 percent of the 844 EISes it reviewed.

Yesterday, PolyMet released a statement seeking to control the damage the EPA’s rating has done to its credibility. Unfortunately, the company included a statement in their press release that is blatantly false:

“The EPA’s rating of the draft EIS as unsatisfactory appears to have been based on the ‘proposed project’ without  consideration of alternatives or mitigations discussed in the document.”

This is false. In page two of the EPA’s letter, the agency states:

“This rating applies to the Proposed Action, the Mine Site Alternative and the Tailings Basin Alternative.”

There is no way to excuse such a misleading statement as PolyMet has made. Rather than offering specific details that respond to the EPA’s criticisms, the company has chosen only to muddy the waters.