Minneapolis Star Tribune Metro section Feb 5,2010
Proposed copper-nickel mine draws 'extraordinary' interest
State and federal regulators will take several months to review voluminous public feedback about the PolyMet project.
More than 3,500 comments in 45 days. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has received a mini tidal wave of letters, e-mails and oral comments about a proposed copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota. It's not a surprise, since everything about the $600 million PolyMet project is big.
"This is certainly an extraordinary level of comments," said Stuart Arkley, the project's environmental study manager. "Normally a couple hundred might be considered a lot."
The comment period ended Wednesday for the lengthy environmental impact study for the PolyMet mining and ore processing project near Hoyt Lakes.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the federal partner with the DNR in preparing the study, which began nearly four years ago.
The draft report must be finalized before the mine can receive any of the mining, water, air and wetlands permits needed to begin construction.
Arkley said it will take months to organize and respond to the comments, which range from short e-mails to lengthy, point-by-point critiques, some of them by expert scientists.
Those in favor of the project include labor unions and nearby Iron Range communities such as Virginia that would benefit from 400 new jobs and additional spending. U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken and Rep. James Oberstar also approve of the mine.
The project would open a new kind of mine and refurbish the mothballed LTV taconite processing plant nearby to produce copper, nickel and the precious metals cobalt, platinum, palladium and gold. It would be the first large nonferrous mine in the state that processes sulfide rock.
Environmentalists said that the draft environmental study, detailed as it is, does not adequately address concerns that the open-pit mine and processing operation would increase mercury in fish and contaminate rivers and groundwater with acidic runoff from waste rock. They also want stronger financial guarantees that the company will pay for water treatment and environmental protection for decades.
"PolyMet is the first in a long list of new proposed mining operations in Minnesota," said Scott Strand, executive director of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. "We have to get this first one right."
PolyMet officials have said that the mine will have minimal effect on the environment and will use state-of-the-art technology to process the ore and manage the waste rock.
