I spoke with Alex Macdougall of Macdougall Consultants, ltd 866 364 6625. He was very informative, and welcomed a return call at any time. Of course, the questions everyone wants answers to, are by default often the answers noone has. When is the EIS expected in the Environmental Quality Review Board publication?...sometime in March is the consensus. What is the status of the legislation being proposed?...the exact language is not yet known as the bill hasn't yet been proposed to committee. Is there support for the draft verbage of the bill (draft is not even public knowledge yet)? Limited support by legislators; the majority, including range democrats, support the projects on the range, and they largely understand the legislation which is being proposed is redundant and/or meant to intentionally block non-ferrous mining projects speicifically, and contrary to public statements of the environment groups behind the legislation. He mentioned the author of the article in the Duluth News Tribune has an environmental slant to his articles (his opinion). As a result of the conversation my takeaway was that he seemed very positive...essentially no different information than we already largely knew, except giving clarity to some information on which I had ambiguities. The clarity was helpful on a few points including why I couldn't find a draft/copy of the bill in committee (as it hasn't been formally introduced yet). Also he gave some clarity to the process by which they will be managing the potential acid run-off during the project and the resulting impact once the project has run its life cycle. (the is the only question where I feel I still need greater clarity, and it may be a matter of needing to read the eis for myself to make sure I am not imposing my own understanding as the facts). The project piling are really the portion of rock which has less than 5% sulphur; this is the rock which is unfeasible to retrieve the metals from as it is too cost-ineffective. All other rock with greater than 5% sulphur content will endup being broken down for the metals and the resulting sulphuric acid which results from the breakdown of this rock will be recycled into the project for breakdown of other rock...essentially the sulphuric acid will end up being used and will not end up as trapped in surface waste rock. (the only waste rock is the rock that doesn't have economic potential) he additionally shared that even post project (30-50 years), once the runoff is not being recycled into the project, it will only result in very mild acidification such as that of milk or equivalent to natural decomposition of leaves in a forest...as this is because the only rock exposed would be the lowest possible sulphur containing rock of the project. This project will really being a model for how other projects are done. In my mind, I had thought that low sulphur containing rock potentially meant a greater volume of rock would be created, which is not the case based on my understanding now.
Good information, which makes me more comfortable with the project status.
