PolyMet CEO optimistic on EIS
Mesabi Daily News 10/09/14
DNR commissioner: Document should be finalized in spring 2015
ST. PAUL — A top PolyMet official reacted optimistically Wednesday to an early spring 2015 completion date of an environmental impact statement for the company’s copper/nickel/precious metals project near Hoyt Lakes announced this week by the Minnesota DNR commissioner.
“We appreciate the tremendous amount of work and resources the agencies are devoting to ensure the final EIS is thorough and responds appropriately to the public comments on the draft EIS. There is an enormous amount of hard work going into this critically important final phase of the environmental review,” said PolyMet CEO and President Jon Cherry.
He was responding to a comment Monday from DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr at a meeting with Iron Range elected officials in Virginia organized by the Range Association of Municipalities and Schools.
“My goal is to have the EIS out the door early next spring,” Landwehr said.
The project is now in its ninth year of environmental review. Landwehr has previously called the draft EIS a “good document.”
Gov. Mark Dayton, in a recent Mesabi Daily News interview, said the PolyMet permitting process has gone on for too long, but quickly added it had “to be done right.”
Landwehr on Monday echoed his boss. He said it has to be done right because “there will be a lawsuit” at some point.
Landwehr also voiced a cautionary tone, saying getting to the final EIS “will require that a lot of things fall into place.”
But Cherry looked on his comments as hopeful.
“The commissioner’s stated goals give us optimism the EIS can be finalized by early spring and we can have permits in place during the 2015 construction season in northern Minnesota,” Cherry said.
The project will generate about 2 million construction hours over a 15-month period, with the venture creating more than 900 direct and indirect jobs and $515 million annually in economic benefits, according to PolyMet officials.
