But Kennecott is facing opposition for an equally controversial project:  to pump treated water containing toxic amounts of selenium into the Great Salt Lake.  Over one-hundred years of copper mining has led to some of the most contaminated groundwater in the world.  One writer to the Salt Lake Tribune offered his eloquent take on the issue:

Say ‘no’ to selenium dumping in the Great Salt Lake

If you live near a canal in Magna or West Valley City, you may see a new pipeline being encased in cement. But do you know what it’s for?

Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation and the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District (JVWCD) have entered into an agreement with the State of Utah to clean contaminated groundwater from legacy mining activity, create a 21-mile transmission pipe, and dump the contaminants, including the mineral selenium, into the Great Salt Lake.

My question is, why is the pipe already being built when public approval has not been given and the impact of putting selenium into the Great Salt Lake is uncertain? And why is the lake the selected site for dumping when Kennecott already has a potential site of its own, the tailings impoundment?

Selenium is an essential nutrient — one that you can buy in supplemental form at your local pharmacy. But excessive amounts can be dangerous to wildlife and people.

“For selenium, that boundary between the optimum amount that you actually need and stepping over that line to toxicity is just a knife edge,” writes Marjorie Brooks, a professor at the University of Southern Illinois. The EPA will unveil new national standards in 2012. Let’s stop the pipe building until the national standards are set.

The JVWCD says it will dilute the selenium. Unfortunately, chemicals and pollutants dumped into the Great Salt Lake have no way to exit the lake and become concentrated as water evaporates. What will be the impact of concentrated selenium on brine shrimp and migratory birds? The brine shrimp cyst harvest is an $80 million business. Brine shrimp are also an important food source for many of the 7 million water birds that migrate through the lake annually.

The JVWCD described the impact of selenium as “an environmental concern, but not a human concern.” I disagree. I think if it concerns the environment, it concerns us, too.

I’m not a scientist. I’m just a father who sees a pipe with a lot of question marks being built a few hundred yards from my house. Several years ago, the original plan was to dump the contaminants from this project into the Jordan River. A public outcry prevented that from happening. I hope a similar outcry will take place now that the much-delayed public comment period has begun.

To register your concerns, go to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality’s website at www.deq.utah.gov. More monitoring and tests need to be completed.

Kevin Fayles is a resident of West Valley City and community relations manager at Envision Utah. This article represents his opinion, not his employer’s.

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.” According to the EPA, PolyMet would destroy hundreds of acres of “high quality” wetlands, pollute ground and surface water of “national importance” with acidic mine drainage and dump mercury into Lake Superior.

From Duhigg’s, “Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.”:

Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.

As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.

Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.

The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials.

“We are, in essence, shutting down our Clean Water programs in some states,” said Douglas F. Mundrick, an E.P.A. lawyer in Atlanta. “This is a huge step backward. When companies figure out the cops can’t operate, they start remembering how much cheaper it is to just dump stuff in a nearby creek.”

To read more, please visit the New York Times.  Read the rest of Duhigg’s articles on this subject by clicking HERE.

From an article by the AP‘s John Flesher:

A company preparing to build a nickel and copper mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wants to change its wastewater treatment system in a way that could negate the requirement for a federal permit, officials said Tuesday.

Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co. has asked the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment to modify a 2007 state permit authorizing underground discharge of treated wastewater from the mine planned for rural Marquette County.

Originally, the company proposed injecting the treated water back into the groundwater through a network of soil-covered infiltration pipes. The new plan calls for keeping the pipes on the surface and covering them with Styrofoam insulation and a liner. The treated water would still be pumped into the groundwater.

To read the rest of this article, click HERE.

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.”

In a similar letter, US Representative Jim Oberstar urged the DNR to approve PolyMet’s project:

“PolyMet has earned my support from the outset because of its responsible, innovative approach to nonferrous mining and processing; the DEIS does an excellent job of describing the many steps PolyMet will take to minimize environmental impacts.”

Oberstar and US Senator Amy Klobuchar tried introducing a bill that would allow PolyMet to directly own 6,700 acres of the Superior National Forest.  The move would also eliminate requirements requiring consultation and cooperation with Native American tribes, under an 1854 treaty with the US government.  Because the proposed site, located on public land, is protected from strip mining by the Weeks Act, passed in the early 1900s, PolyMet will either need special legislation or an equally controversial land exchange with the US Forest Service in order to proceed with its mine.

And just last week State Representative Tom Rukavina claimed, in an interview, that “this mine as it moves forward will be the most environmentally sound copper nickel mine I think in the world.”

In a letter to the St. Paul District of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Bharat Mathur, Acting Regional Administrator for the EPA’s Midwestern district, said the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the project is “Environmentally Unsatisfactory-Inadequate” (the lowest rating possible) and would violate federal Clean Water Act requirements by contaminating ground and surface water with acidic mine drainage and mercury and destroy over 1,000 acres of high –quality wetlands.  According to the agency, plans to combat acid mine drainage are “inadequate.”

The letter notes that the DEIS failed to include information on financial assurance and was missing much information on the tailings basin’s projected stability, impacts to groundwater and surface water, and impacts to wetlands.

According to the EPA, “The project will result in unacceptable and long-term water quality impacts, which include exceeding water quality standards, releasing unmitigated wastewater discharges to water bodies (during operation and in the post-closure period), and increasing mercury loadings into the Lake Superior watershed.”

The EPA’s letter confirms criticisms coming from citizen groups and environmentalists that the project would destroy valuable wetlands and pollute groundwater and surface water feeding into Lake Superior.

“The EPA decision to rate the PolyMet DEIS as ‘environmentally unsatisfactory-inadequate’ confirms what our grassroots group has been saying for the past 5 years,” said Elanne Palcich, a retired school teacher from the Iron Range.  ”This type of mining cannot be done in the wetland environment of northeast Minnesota without polluting our waterways for centuries.  There is nothing in this DEIS that demonstrates how water contamination from acid mine drainage can be prevented.

Late in 2009 the Friends of the Boundary Waters listed some concerns on the group’s website:

Water leaching from the waste rock piles is expected to be contaminated for up to 2,000 years

The West Mine Pit will overflow at Mine Year 65 (45 years after expected mine closure), contaminating the adjacent Partridge River with sulfates and heavy metals

Groundwater at the mine site is expected to exceed water quality standards

Due to structural instability, the tailings basin has a “low margin of safety”

The Minnesota DNR hired Environmental Resources Management (ERM), based out of London, England to conduct the DEIS.

PolyMet plans to use this closed processing plant for its proposed NorthMet mine

In December, Al Trippel, an environmental consultant with ERM, 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 been actively involved in new mining proposals in the region for years.  Trippel acted as Aquila Resource’s representative throughout Michigan’s “Part 632″ statute and rules process, from 2004 through 2005 that crafted legislation regulating the metallic sulfide mining industry.  Trippel is currently on Aquila’s payroll, and was responsible for conducting baseline environmental studies necessary prior to submitting a mine application for the company’s proposed “Back Forty” project, located along the Menominee River, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  Aquila plans to submit a mining application for the project this year.

Minerals Processing Corporation, a Minnesota company associated with Aquila, was recently denied a “conditional use permit” to explore for minerals in Carlton County, Minnesota.  In 2006 Kennecott (a subsidiary of Rio Tinto) was denied a similar permit in Aitkin County.  Kennecott sued the county and was supported by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.  The court complained that county commissioners were too “heavily influenced by public opposition” and argued that the public had no legal right to stop a mining project in Minnesota.  The company is now promoting the “Tamarack” copper and nickel project to investors.

According to a news release, PolyMet is viewing the EPA’s criticism as just another part of the process.

The Final EIS will likely incorporate many of the suggestions from the EPA and others that have been proposed during the public comment period. The intent of the draft EIS process is to use the comments on the DEIS to improve the proposed project that will be documented in the Final EIS. The Final EIS will be subject to public review before being declared “adequate” by the MDNR and receiving a “record of decision” by the USACE. Once the comments have been fully analyzed, the MDNR and the USACE will establish a timetable for completion of the Final EIS and subsequent permitting.

Similarly, in Michigan, Rio Tinto’s Humboldt Mill project received sharp criticism from the EPA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in June 2009.  Yet, by January 2010, the agencies had retracted their opposition so long as Rio Tinto adequately monitors the pollution.

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.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, Save Lake Superior Association, and the Indigenous Environmental Network filed a formal notice letter today that acts as a “prerequisite to filing a citizen enforcement action under the Clean Water Act.”  The Save Lake Superior Association, a grassroots citizen group, proved instrumental in holding the Reserve Mining Co. to account for dumping iron mining waste into Lake Superior from 1955 into the 1970s.  The pollution introduced asbestos-like material into the lake and harmed fishing in the area.

From today’s Center for Biological Diversity news release:

“Before the state even considers the approval of a new wave of mining in northeastern Minnesota, it should first require the mining companies to clean up the pollution from past taconite mines,” said Marc Fink, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “As we all learned as kids, you should clean up one mess before making another one.”

The LTV basin, located six miles north of Hoyt Lakes, was used for taconite tailings from the 1950s until 2001. The unlined basin is the source of numerous seeps and discharges of polluted wastewater into groundwater and surface waters, which eventually reach the Embarrass River.  For the proposed NorthMet mine, PolyMet proposes to process more than 225 million tons of ore at the LTV processing facility, and use the same LTV tailings basin already known to be leaking.

“While past mining has already polluted these waters, the proposed heavy metals mining would bring severe new threats of pollution to these waters, which ultimately flow into Lake Superior at the Duluth harbor,” said Le Lind of the Save Lake Superior Association. “This new threat includes sulfuric acid runoff and higher levels of mercury in waters that are already impaired.”

In addition to the LTV site, the groups intend to file suit to stop ongoing pollution at the Dunka mine site, which is close to where Duluth Metals has plans for a copper-nickel mine adjacent to the Kawishiwi River, and where Franconia Minerals proposes a copper-nickel mine at the bottom of Birch Lake. Both the Kawishiwi River and Birch Lake flow into the Boundary Waters.

“These are historic tribal lands where the tribes retain treaty rights, and many tribal members are deeply concerned about additional pollution to fishing streams and sources of wild rice,” said Marty Cobenais of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Cliffs Natural Resources operates iron ore mines in Minnesota and Michigan, including the Empire and Tilden mines, in the Upper Peninsula.  Cliffs’ Michigan operations are currently leaching illegal amounts selenium into surrounding groundwater and surface water that is in violation of federal and state water quality laws.

New commissioner David Saint-Onge questioned why the City was considering the resolution.

“As a new guy on the commission, I’m not so sure why this issue comes before us, to be honest with you, why we’re taking the amount of time that we’ve taken to address this issue – not that it’s not important,” said Saint-Onge. “I do believe that there are some portions of the resolution that’s being offered this evening that are unnecessarily inflammatory.”

Saint-Onge said that, since the resolution was introduced he could not, according to City guidelines, abstain from a vote. The seemingly reluctant St. Onge endorsed the resolution with a quiet “yes” vote.

According to November 30 City Commission meeting minutes, the anti-ballot resolution was introduced in order to support “State Senator Prusi’s efforts to defend mining in the Upper Peninsula.” In a November 11 news release, endorsed by four other Upper Peninsula politicians, Prusi claimed the MiWater ballot would “BAN any future mining,” and would create “economic devastation for the families that live and work in the Upper Peninsula.” Although the proposed MiWater ballot would act as an amendment to legislation governing only metallic sulfide mining (the ballot would also require similar legislation for uranium mining), Prusi’s claim was invoked by two City commissioners.

Mayor Pro-Tem John DePetro, who introduced the anti-ballot resolution, suggested that the ballot effort was a “guise” that “would affect and stop future mining in the Upper Peninsula the rest of our lives.”

Commissioner Frederick Stonehouse agreed, claiming the ballot would “have a very negative effect on all mining in the Upper Peninsula, be it iron, copper, nickel, even limestone.”

During public comment, building contractor, Jorma Lankinen and Marquette resident, Tony Retaskie used rhetoric similar to that in Senator Prusi’s statement.

“The Michigan water ballot proposal is really an anti-economic, anti-jobs, anti-mining and anti-Upper Peninsula proposal, and it’s disguised under a clean water initiative derived from Grosse Pointe,” said Retaskie.

Retired professor, Jon Saari disagreed, saying that Retaskie’s comments represent “the whole hammer blow of what we’re going to be seeing in this debate over the next year.”

“Our public discourse, these days, is abysmal,” said Saari. “This Michigan water initiative is being presented as anti-UP, anti-UP economy, culture and future, and a trick by a bunch of Grosse Pointe elitists.”

Gene Champagne, spokesperson for Concerned Citizens of Big Bay (CCBB), introduced himself as from “Big Bay up the road, not Big Bay below the bridge, at Grosse Pointe, as some of our officials like to point out in the media.”

Champagne explained that CCBB introduced a resolution in 2003 or 2004 calling for independent hydrology studies.

“That resolution called for a third party, independent hydrology study on the Yellow Dog Plains before any hardrock or sulfide mining takes place,” said Champagne. “The hydrology is not a guise; it’s been at the forefront of this issue since the beginning.”

In 2005, Marquette County Board Chairman Gerald Corkin wrote to express similar concerns to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality:

“The Marquette County Board of Commissioners supports…recent requests for a United States Geological Survey (USGS) Baseline and Hydrologic Survey of the Yellow Dog Plains region. This request has the support of Marquette County residents and local government officials, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, as well as State Senator Michael Prusi.”

The Marquette City Commission unanimously passed a resolution supporting independent hydrology studies and was supported by Marquette County and a number of townships.

In his support for the anti-ballot resolution, Commissioner Stonehouse noted that only three percent of Michigan’s voting population lived in the Upper Peninsula.

“We effectively have no functional voice on politics in this state – we are simply overwhelmed by the numbers,” said Stonehouse.

Commissioner Robert Niemi also took a practical view of the ballot initiative.

“The issue is too complex to do by initiative,” said Niemi. “The future of the mining industry is important to the UP and the vagaries of a political campaign are not the way to decide the question.”

Some comments in support of the resolution claimed disastrous economic consequences if the ballot proposal moved forward.

Amy Clickner, CEO of the Lake Superior Community Partnership (City commissioner and former Cleveland-Cliffs manager of public affairs, Don Ryan, helped form the group), along with some influential building contractors one of the main supporters of Rio Tinto’s Eagle Mine proposal, claimed that a water ballot proposal would threaten all other aspects of Michigan’s economy.

“Once we start this slippery slope, where does it end?” questioned Clickner. “Is the next ballot initiative what we can do in timber, is it what we can do in agriculture, is it what we can do in recreation?”

Jon LaSalle, chairman of Citizens to Protect Michigan Jobs, claimed that, if the proposed ballot were passed, “The economic consequences of all future mining would be horrendous.”

“There’s no proven contamination anywhere in this subject matter,” said LaSalle.

However, according to the US Forest Service, at least ten-thousand miles of rivers in the American West have been destroyed by metallic sulfide mining operations. In September 2008, one of Rio Tinto’s largest shareholders, the Norwegian government, divested and called the company “grossly unethical” for its operations at a controversial mine in West Papua, currently under Indonesian military control. In a statement, Norway’s Council on Ethics said that acid drainage from metallic sulfide mines is “considered one of the most serious mining-related environmental problems across the world.”

Promoted as a “citizen” campaign, the spokesperson for Citizens to Protect Michigan Jobs is Deb Muchmore. For years, Muchmore has been Rio Tinto’s lead spokesperson in efforts to open the proposed Eagle Mine.

LaSalle also said that claims of future uranium mining in Michigan were unfounded.

“Today, earth scientists agree that no one has found a commercially-viable uranium ore body in Michigan,” said LaSalle.

Retired Northern Michigan University chemistry professor, Gail Griffith, disagrees. According to Griffith, since 2004 the price of uranium has dropped from $139 a pound to less than $50 a pound, making uranium operations that may be economically viable in the future not viable today.

“If well water in the Jacobsville Sandstone formation is already contaminated with uranium it seems reasonable to develop stringent rules for uranium mining to protect these waters and to do it now,” said Griffith.

According to Michigan Messenger a joint venture between uranium giant, Cameco, and Bitteroot Resources, has been actively exploring the Upper Peninsula since 2003, spending over $700 thousand on uranium exploration in the first nine months of 2009 alone.  In a report issued to shareholders in July, the company noted that it had “identified several areas which warrant additional exploration.”

Commissioner Stonehouse seemed to agree with Griffith.

“If it only prevented uranium mining I would likely support it and would be the first one to sign the petition,” said Stonehouse. “If the issue were only about mining on the Yellow Dog Plains and its sensitivity to Lake Superior, that’s a different story too.”

Stonehouse said that a number of issues are affecting the Great Lakes that are more significant that metallic sulfide mining and cited his belief that Asian carp “will decimate a seven billion dollar fishing industry.

“From an environmental perspective that is a disaster of biblical proportions,” said Stonehouse.

For additional video from the meeting, please go to YouTube.

As the result of tightly-controlled verbal public comment, few participated in that part of the PolyMet DEIS process; Photo courtesy Lori Andresen

Hundreds of PolyMet Mining Company supporters were bussed to public meetings in Aurora and Blaine to provide comments on the company’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the proposed NorthMet project.  The organizing effort was combined with a public relations blitz of endorsements from Minnesota state and federal politicians -including the late endorsement of Senator Al Franken – the Minnesota AFL-CIO, construction groups and the Chamber of Commerce.  Despite the large turnout, the public was unable to speak at either meeting.

“The ‘public hearings’ didn’t actually allow public comments to the audience,” said retired miner, Bob Tammen.  “The only oral comments allowed were by individuals to stenographers in a tightly monitored room separate from the auditorium.  That meant that the only outside speakers allowed were Iron Range legislators.”

Citizens wanting to give verbal public comment registered here in order to speak, privately, with a stenographer; Photo courtesy Lori Andresen

In a new public hearing format, described as “enhanced” by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), public comments were severely restricted with the only speakers allowed to voice opinions on the project being staunch political supporters of PolyMet’s NorthMet proposal.  State Senator David Tomassoni and State Representative Thomas Rukavina gave speeches at the hearing in Aurora, on Wednesday, while State Senator Thomas Bakk chimed in at the Blaine hearing, the following day. Both Rukavina and Bakk are running for governor in the 2010 election.

Rukavina criticized the DNR and Governor Tim Pawlenty for silencing the public and used his unique opportunity to promote his gubernatorial campaign.

“If I were Governor,” said Rukavina, “the public would have been allowed to speak.”

Supporters claim PolyMet’s NorthMet project would provide metals necessary for what is being called a “green economy” that produces wind turbines, hybrid vehicles, batteries and solar panels.  Over the past decade, the mining industry has attempted, rather successfully, to recraft its dirty image through a massive global public relations effort to frame mining operations as synonymous with sustainable development.

“The new green economy is ready to explode,” said Senator Tomassoni, at the Aurora hearing.

Retired schoolteacher, Elanne Palcich disagrees and maintains that projects like PolyMet’s are anything but environmentally friendly.

“Mining ninety-nine percent waste rock is not green and not sustainable,” says Palcich.  “This mine is only green for a few top investors who hope to make huge profits on the precious metals while the going is good.”

A statement on PolyMet’s website claims that “by providing these valuable metals while meeting strict environmental regulations, PolyMet will help U.S. consumers practice sustainability, as well.”

Representative Rukavina said that metals from the NorthMet mine would be used to create numerous “green” products.

“Whether you support this project or have concerns, no one will dispute that we need these metals,” said Rukavina.

But Bob Tammen says the metals shouldn’t come from water-rich Minnesota.

“Every Polymet meeting I’ve been to has a coffee pot but nobody says we should grow coffee in Minnesota because we use it here,” said Tammen.  “We aren’t a great area for growing coffee; likewise, we aren’t a great area for mining copper.  We’re all wetlands.”

“I’m probably more against it because of the economics than environmentally,” Tammen told the Mesabi Daily News.  “Historically, any region that relies on resources and mining does not do as well as other areas. People just sit around and wait for the mining companies to provide some jobs that come and go,’’ Tammen said.

Others have concerns coming from an environmental and public health standpoint.  After reviewing the DEIS, the Friends of the Boundary Waters has outlined some of the more major environmental and public health concerns with PolyMet’s proposal on their website.  According to the group,

Water leaching from the waste rock piles is expected to be contaminated for up to 2,000 years

The West Mine Pit will overflow at Mine Year 65 (45 years after expected mine closure), contaminating the adjacent Partridge River with sulfates and heavy metals

Groundwater at the mine site is expected to exceed water quality standards

Due to structural instability, the tailings basin has a “low margin of safety”

Al Trippel, an environmental consultant with Environmental Resources Management (ERM), based out of London, England, gave a presentation on PolyMet’s DEIS.  The Minnesota DNR hired Trippel’s firm to conduct the “third-party” assessment of PolyMet’s project, not the first time Trippel has been promoted as an independent source.

Trippel acted as Aquila Resource’s representative throughout Michigan’s “Part 632″ statute and rules process that crafted legislation regulating the metallic sulfide mining industry. Trippel is currently on Aquila’s payroll, and was responsible for conducting baseline environmental studies necessary prior to submitting a mine application for the company’s proposed “Back Forty” project, located along the Menominee River, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  In December 2008 Trippel gave a presentation, in Menominee, Michigan, that was advertised by Aquila, in a local newspaper, as being held “in response to public requests for unbiased, educational, fact-driven information from an expert.”

While DNR, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and US Army Corps of Engineers staff were on hand to answer public questions, the US Forest Service, an agency cooperating on the DEIS, was not available at the public meetings.

Forest Service involvement in the PolyMet proposal is significant.  In order to open the NorthMet project, the company must either secure a controversial land exchange with the Forest Service or rely on a bill introduced by US Representative Jim Oberstar and US Senator Amy Klobuchar that would allow PolyMet to directly own 6,700 acres of the Superior National Forest.  The move would also eliminate requirements requiring consultation and cooperation with Native American tribes, under an 1854 treaty with the US government.

In addition to the land exchange bill, PolyMet may also benefit from a revolving door relationship between state pollution enforcement agencies and the mining industry.

Brad Moore, recently the commissioner of the MPCA, now works for Barr

Ann Glumac (in blue), former deputy MPCA commissioner, currently a PolyMet consultant, at Aurora meeting; Photo courtesy Lori Andresen

Engineering, a Minneapolis-based consulting firm working with PolyMet, while Ann Glumac, former deputy MPCA commissioner, is assisting PolyMet as a consultant.

In 2007 Franconia Minerals hired former Director of the state DNR’s Division of Lands & Minerals, William Brice, as the company’s Director of Government & Community Relations.  Franconia is currently exploring a deposit directly underneath Birch Lake, which feeds into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

For information on providing public comment – due by February 3, 2010 – please visit the Minnesota DNR’s PolyMet page.

Baraga County Mine Inspector, Don Carlson, expressed concern that fugitive dust leaving the proposed mill site could affect worker’s health and the health of their families since he has not seen an adequate plan to both capture and dispose of the fine material.  Carlson also highlighted Michigan’s poor economy – Baraga County has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates - and said that any mining jobs need to be performed by union workers, citing the closed White Pine Mine as a good example of how workers could be treated.

“When this company comes to the area are the area people going to be hired or are the companies going to bring the people from other areas,” questioned Carlson.  “We have an influx in Michigan of no jobs, people being laid off every day, all these types of things and these workers aren’t being able to go and get a job, a union job, with these companies.”

Rio Tinto, a notorious anti-worker company has drawn the ire of union workers around the world and is currently attempting to bust Local 30 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, AFL-CIO, at the company’s large open pit Borax Mine, in California.

Chris Mofatt, a Marquette County prison worker and lifelong Upper Peninsula resident said, “I don’t oppose mining, I don’t oppose jobs, but I do oppose liars and I think that Rio Tinto and the DEQ are not credible.”

“Rio Tinto’s track record is poor,” said Mofatt.  “They want to come in here and do the same thing in the UP they’ve done in other countries. I oppose that.  Michigan deserves better than that and we’re not getting it right now.  Our corporate government wants to run an eighteenth century industry down the throat of twenty-first century enfranchised Americans. . . we deserve better and so does everybody in the world because we have twenty percent of the fresh water.”

According to Keweenaw Bay Indian Community geologist, Chuck Brumleve, the DEQ’s approval of the Humboldt Project is currently opposed by both the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  Yet, in an interview with WLUC-TV6, the DEQ’s director of the Office of Geological Survey, Hal Fitch, claimed that approval of the Humboldt Mill project “hasn’t been a controversial issue.”

Reading from an EPA statement, Brumleve reported that the agency is “concerned the currently proposed project may have significant adverse impacts on the ecosystem.  We object to the issuance of a permit for this project.”

Brumleve said that the US Fish and Wildlife Service requested “that the MDEQ not issue a permit for the proposed work.”

Brumleve expressed concern if toxic materials enter into the Middle Branch of the Escanaba River, already contaminated by high selenium levels coming from Cliff’s Natural Resources’ Empire and Tilden iron ore mines.

“The Escanaba River watershed is one of the Upper Peninsula’s major watersheds,” said Brumleve.  Any discharge “will ultimately affect the Escanaba River and discharge into Lake Michigan.  The Escanaba River already has a number of fish advisories.”

At a previous Humboldt Mill hearing, in February, Ely Township resident and miner, Stephen Johnson, said that he lives along the Escanaba River and has seen fish die off.

“Since the thirty years I’ve lived here I’ve seen the Middle Branch of the Escanaba deteriorate as a quality watershed,” Johnson said.  “We used to have brook trout galore in it some thirty years ago and I’m not aware of anybody catching a brook trout down by my residency in the last fifteen years.”

Marquette County Commissioner, Deb Pellow, read a statement in support of Rio Tinto’s milling plans, saying that the “reuse of the abandoned industrial site is an outstanding opportunity for environmental clean-up with the cost borne by Kennecott.”

“At the end of the mine’s life the site and surrounding area will have to be reclaimed to establish a self-sustaining ecosystem that does not need ongoing care.” [to view Pellow's public comment, see video below]

Indirectly countering Pellow, Brumleve said that while “we’re all in favor of” reusing old industrial sites, “instead of creating news ones,” Rio Tinto’s application makes clear, in at least two sections, that they are not required to leave the site cleaner than it currently is, nor do they intend to do so.

Quoting from Rio Tinto’s application, Brumleve said “the final land use of the reclaimed area of the Humboldt Mill site will remain as restricted industrial uses consistent with [Rio Tinto's] acquisition of the site.”

“They apparently do not intend to remediate these conditions,” said Brumleve.

Cynthia Pryor, Big Bay resident and former executive director of the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, outlined other deficiencies.  Pryor said that contingency plans required under Michigan law for a ‘spill prevention control plan’, ‘pollution incident prevention plan’ and monitoring of surface water sediment and fish tissue, as well as designs for “liners, covers, leachate collection systems [and] tanks” were not included in the application.

“Those designs should have been a part of the application,” said Pryor.  “In order to demonstrate that you’re going to be capable of doing something, you should have the design available for people to look at, for you to evaluate and for us to comment on.”

Pryor said the DEQ failed to request additional information from the company regarding designs for a water treatment plant, as well as a containment wall to prevent toxic tailing waste from entering into area wetlands and the Middle Branch of the Escanaba River.

“If it is not done, if it is not there, then your job is not done and neither is theirs,” said Pryor.  “It is the law. . . the application, therefore, is not complete.”

The DEQ’s Hal Fitch maintained that Rio Tinto has met all requirements.

“We’ve looked at it, at every aspect of it,” Fitch said.  “The requirements, the statute, and our rules and we feel that it meets those requirements and with those revisions and provisions Kennecott has provided us.”

Richmond Township supervisor William Luetzow joined supervisors in Humboldt, Republic and Michigamme townships in offering “one hundred percent” support of Rio Tinto’s proposed milling facility.  Luetzow, likely among the minority of American citizens that trust politicians, said that he resented public comments suggesting that Michigan politicians were corrupt and working on behalf of Rio Tinto’s interests.

“It was brought up twice here that politicians are corrupt or they’re part of this Kennecott thing.  I truly don’t understand that because politicians are voted by the people, for the people,” said Luetzow.

Some Rio Tinto supporters attacked local opponents as “anti-mining” and opposed to jobs.  James Sodergren claimed that, “many of the folks who make up the anti-mining group are not residents.  I’m certain that they have spent millions and continue to spend more in their effort to stop mining in the UP” and Deerton resident, John Hongisto, claimed that Rio Tinto opponents were “telling lies about mining and Kennecott.” [see video below]

Later public comments countered the claim that Rio Tinto opponents were opposed to mining or jobs.  Big Bay resident and schoolteacher, Gene Champagne, said, “You hear a lot of talk about jobs tonight.  Yes, we need jobs in this area.  Who in their right mind is against jobs?”

Champagne said that he does not belong to an environmental group and that Rio Tinto’s own actions led him to not trust their mining plans.

“In the time that I’ve been opposing I’ve never heard one person in the opposition, in so-called environmental groups, say one thing about being anti-mine or anti-jobs,” said Champagne.

Champagne called the approval process a “farce” and said that, while “we need the jobs here, nowhere in the law does it say that it has to provide jobs to get a permit.”

“The law says it does have to protect the safety of the workers and the safety of our environment,” said Champagne.  “The DEQ needs to follow the law.”

A couple comments in support of reopening the Humboldt Mill were seemingly heartfelt and compelling, especially considering that Michigan currently has the highest unemployment rate in the country.

Jay Mathews, with the local carpenters and millwrights union, said that his family has a long history of working in the mines and construction.

“It’s been our heritage for four or five generations,” said Mathews.  “All of my family has been supported by mines or by the jobs that came around with the mines.”

Mathews said that his sister worked for the Republic school system and lost her job when Cleveland Cliff’s eponymous mine closed.

“When they closed the schools, she was out of a job, said Mathews.  So it’s not just the mine workers that work, it’s everybody around.  It’s a big picture that we need now, as far as the economy goes.”

For other local coverage, read Johanna Boyle’s article, at the Marquette Mining Journal.

To view documents related to the proposed Humboldt Mill project, or to comment on the project by 5pm, Tuesday, December 29, 2009, visit the Michigan DEQ’s Web site.

Bob and Pat Tammen Canoe on Birch Lake; Photo courtesy Lori Andresen

On November 19, the White Iron Chain of Lakes Association (WICOLA) outlined plans before the Lake County Board for an extensive water testing effort of the Kawishiwi River watershed in order to locate pollution sources and prevent future pollution.  The project would be funded with $500,000 from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and could possibly attract matching funds.

WICOLA, which has not taken a stance on the metallic sulfide mining controversy, has been conducting water testing for years.  The $500,000 investment in remote Lake County would be much more comprehensive than previous efforts.

Franconia Minerals Exploration Barge on Birch Lake; Photo courtesy Lori Andresen

Although companies actively pursuing projects in northeastern Minnesota between the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Lake Superior claim that future mining operations would be “sustainable” and have few, if any negative affects on the surrounding environment, Duluth Metals seems concerned with an extensive testing regime that would establish baseline water conditions, allowing future pollution to be readily detected.  Duluth Metals and Franconia Minerals are both conducting extensive exploration at Birch Lake, which feeds into the White Iron Chain of Lakes and, ultimately, the Boundary Waters and Hudson’s Bay.  Franconia is exploring directly underneath Birch Lake.

Claiming to represent the mining industry, David Oliver, project manager for Duluth Metal’s Nokomis Project, expressed opposition to the proposal and warned WICOLA that they should only be affiliated with metallic sulfide mine supporters.

“The reputation you have is not based on loose associations or casual associations, it comes from newsletters written by Brad Sagen, Carla Arneson, Bob Tammen and we even have a new film star here tonight, Steve (Koschak) in a new anti-mining film,” said Oliver.

Bob Tammen is a retired iron worker from the Minnesota Iron Range and has worked in other area iron mines.  Steve Koschak owns a successful family resort on the edge of the Boundary Waters Wilderness.

A paranoid Oliver claimed that “half of this crowd isn’t part of WICOLA… which leads me to believe the crew tonight was hand-picked. . . You have members who have written in their own newsletters very shortly after the last meeting… that they’re going to form a watershed plan to stop whatever they’re against.”

Duluth Metals has located what is called the Nokomis Project, in northeastern Minnesota.  The company was recently nominated by the Mining Journal for its success in locating the deposit, considered to be possibly one of the world’s largest copper, nickel, platinum, palladium and gold deposits.