Minnesota's first copper mine took a step forward Wednesday as state officials released a 1,500-page environmental impact study for the Iron Range proposal. The $600 million project, to be built by PolyMet Mining Inc., would include an open-pit mine near Babbitt and a processing plant near Hoyt Lakes, connected by an existing 6-mile railroad spur.
Company officials said the mine would create 400 permanent jobs for more than 20 years, and would produce nickel, cobalt, platinum and other valuable metals.
However, environmentalists said similar mines in other states have created sulphuric acid runoff, and similar problems could poison Minnesota water.
The study, done by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, does not approve the project or recommend that it be built. Rather, it provides a detailed record of facts that must be deemed accurate and complete before the mine and processing plant can receive air and water quality permits.
Environmental leaders are worried about the project, and point to similar mines in South Dakota, northern Wisconsin and elsewhere that have contaminated nearby water despite earlier promises not to do so.
"This is a new kind of mining that has never been done in Minnesota before," said Mary Marrow, staff attorney at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. PolyMet would mine rock that contains sulfur, she said, which is transformed into sulfuric acid when the waste rock is exposed to oxygen and water.
"We're very concerned because PolyMet wants to do sulfide mining in Minnesota's water-rich environment, right next to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Lake Superior," she said.
The draft environmental study estimates that the mine would remove an average 91,200 tons per day of rock, and generate nearly 400 million tons of waste rock over its life.
PolyMet vice president of public affairs LaTisha Gietzen said that ore contains only very low amounts of sulfur, and that waste rock would be placed on liners where runoff would be collected, treated and reused. "We have a very low potential for acid rock drainage," said Gietzen. "What we're proposing to do is environmentally safe."
Gietzen said that problems at copper mines in other states are either old examples, when few pollution regulations existed, or different cases in which there was a significantly higher percentage of sulfur in the rock.
PolyMet is a Canadian firm with headquarters in Hoyt Lakes, Minn., and this is its first project, Gietzen said. PolyMet purchased the former LTV Steel taconite plant after it closed in 2001, and plans to transform it into the processing center for copper and other metals.
The environmental impact study cost more than $20 million, financed by the company, and took the DNR and the Army Corps more than three years to complete. Other effects detailed in the report include potential increases in mercury in fish, additional greenhouse gas emissions, potential loss of habitat for Canadian lynx and wolves, decreased flow in the nearby Partridge River, and destruction of 854 acres of wetlands and more than 1,700 acres of other vegetation.
Half a dozen other firms that have leases in the area and interest in copper-nickel mining are watching the environmental review process closely.
The public can find the draft environmental study on the DNR's website, and can provide comments in writing or at two public meetings soon to be scheduled on the Iron Range and in the Twin Cities. The agencies will consider those comments before publishing a final version of the study next year.
Gietzen said PolyMet expects to receive permits and begin building the mine in the second half of 2010, and to be processing ore a year after that.
Aside from the environmental questions, the project also faces a land dispute. The mining site is located on national forest land, where PolyMet has leased mineral rights. The company and Forest Service disagree on whether the lease includes the right to open-pit mine. Both are exploring the feasibility of a land exchange to resolve the issue.
Source: Star Tribune
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