A long-awaited environmental review of Minnesota's first — and highly controversial — copper nickel mine is done, and it concludes that if the project goes forward as proposed, the state's air, water, wildlife and people will be protected from harm.
State Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr released the 3,000-page document Friday, calling it "thoughtful, independent and thorough."
But it doesn't mean that final approval is a sure thing, he added. PolyMet Mining Corp. still faces a series of permitting and financial reviews before it can proceed with the $650 million mine it has proposed for a site near Hoyt Lakes on Minnesota's Iron Range.
Within minutes of the report's release on Friday, reaction on both sides was in full swing.
Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, who chairs a key environment committee and whose district includes the site, was ebullient. "I think it's an exciting day," he said. "I'm excited about the possibility of new jobs on the Iron Range."
Officials from Mining Truth, a grass-roots campaign organized by Minnesota environmental groups, said in a news release that state regulators and PolyMet are "still ducking the tough questions, while trying to reassure a skeptical public that all their worries will be addressed at some later time."
Valuable ore
PolyMet is the first of several mining companies eager to tap into a major copper-nickel deposit that reaches from the Iron Range up into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Its NorthMet mine would create an estimated 350 jobs and has brought hopes of an economic rebirth to the Range. But the mine also presents different and greater environmental risks than the taconite industry that has dominated the region for decades. The copper-nickel deposits are contained in sulfide ore, which, when exposed to air and water, produces acid that leaches heavy metals and other contaminants out of the rock and, potentially, into nearby lakes, streams and groundwater.