Polymet will destroy 1200 wetlands acres in Lake Superior watershed

North Star Journal-February 2007

It’s Up To You!
A Cut in Profits or Healthy Wetlands
Bill Barton

Judy Helgen’s Counterpoint in the February 19, 2005
edition of the Star Tribune said, “…maintain the health and
richness of wetlands in Minnesota, and indirectly, its lakes and
streams; and you’ll be nurturing the ducks, frogs, and wetland
plants. It’s your world…it’s up to you!”
The same year that Judy wrote this, I attended a retreat at
Holden Village in a national forest on the east side of the
Cascade Mountains in Washington. Getting there required a
two-and-a–half-hour boat ride on beautiful Lake Chelan and a
thirty-minute bus ride up switchback after switchback along
the seemingly pristine Railroad Creek as it cascades down
from Copper Mountain.
When I had a chance to explore the area, I came upon the
eighty acres of mine tailings from the 290-acre Howe Sound
Mining Company Holden Mine, which was closed in 1957. I
was struck by the futility of the attempts to contain the fine
yellow sulfide tailings with landscaping cloth on the sides of
this 200–foot-high pile of tailings. The trees planted on top in
an attempt to hold and cover the pile were apparently not doing
too well, being deformed and scraggly looking, most likely
from the lack of nutrients and lack of shelter on the huge open
area. I questioned the wisdom of installing a disc golf course
on the pile as clouds of yellow dust rose from my feet. Out
from under the boarded-up entrance to the mine ran a steady
stream of acid water three feet wide and five inches deep. The
rock and stones were all covered with a white salt from
reacting with the acid. This is just one of the seeps from the
underground mine, which has filled with water in the years
since 1957.
The work of cleaning up Holden Mine continues today
around conference tables from Seattle to Paris. Lawyers,
engineers, regulators, and consultants are working to bring
about cleanup of the Holden Mine. The Intalco Company,
successor to Howe Sound Mining Company, has signed a
consent decree and now owns the liability for the mine’s
cleanup. Intalco has been funding remedial investigation and
It’s Up To You!, continues on page 7
It’s Up To You!, continuation from cover...
feasibility studies for the last nine years. The
contaminated water seeping out of the mine and
tailings contains copper, cadmium, zinc, iron, and
aluminum. These metals adversely affect the aquatic
life in Railroad Creek. The plan, fifty years after the
mine closed, is to build facilities to collect and treat the
water that flows out of the mine. Intalco does not
believe it is practical or necessary to collect and treat
the water from the tailings. The completed treatment
plant for the mine drainage would require operation
and maintenance indefinitely with on-site power
generation, resident maintenance staff, and continual
fuel and chemical deliveries to neutralize the acid and
precipitate the metals.
A future similar to this is what we are being asked
to accept by Polymet and other PGM (Platinum Group
Metals) mining companies in Minnesota. According to
St. Paul District Army Corps of Engineers Commander
Robert Whiting, the Corps has received hundreds of
mining proposals due to the recent increases in metals
value.
The proposed Polymet PGM Mine site will cover
3,200 acres compared with 290 for Holden. 1,200 acres
of the potential mine site are now healthy natural
wetlands that drain to the Partridge River and
Embarrass River in the St. Louis River-Lake Superior
watershed.
Finding 1,200 acres of replacement wetlands is a
costly up-front problem for a mine because of
requirements of the Federal Clean Water Act and
Minnesota’s Wetland Conservation Act. Replacing
wetlands could significantly affect the economics of a
mining project that may be economically marginal to
begin with. Polymet has identified and contracted with
St. Louis County for an area near Floodwood to be
used as replacement wetlands. If the Floodwood site
does not work out due to local objections or the fact
that some of the site may not be available for
replacement credit because it is already wetland, then
constructing replacement wetlands could delay the
project and cost upwards of a hundred million dollars
(up to $90,000 per created acre). This could be enough
to eliminate the economic viability of the project.
Our state and federal agencies have been meeting
with mining interests and northern counties (who think
they have too many wetlands) to address what they call
the lack of availability of replacement wetlands. As I
see it, the problem is not really availability, but the cost
of creating replacement wetlands in the watershed or
county as required by the Army Corps of Engineers
rules and Clean Water Act. Their solution is a first-inthe-
nation change of the rules to allow replacement in
adjacent “wetland bank service areas” of which there
are only eight covering the entire state. This would
allow replacement of Polymet wetlands as far south as
the metro area and permit depletion and fragmentation
of wetlands in a county or watershed.
Another problem for the Polymet project is that
the PLATSOL process to be used to extract the metals
at the Hoyt Lakes Plant and make the mine feasible has
never been built or operated at full scale. The operators
of the fourteen-day pilot testing stated in their report
that environmental issues needed to be explored further
while Polymet is stating that the environmental issues
have been fully explored during pilot testing.
Statements from the pilot test report on copper
extraction, like “Some crud was observed in the
extraction stage but did not cause operational
problems,” cast doubts on claims of zero discharge
during full-scale operation.
According to the Howlett Research Corp report on
PolyMet Mining Corp (POM-TSX Venture) from Feb
18, 2005, Polymet has been controlled by an Australian
company, Rio Tinto Limited, since August of 2000.
Polymet is planning to start mining this year, thanks to
fast-tracking concessions granted by our State
Administrators. I wonder if the costs of the liability for
cleanup of the Polymet mine fifty years after it closes
have been included in the economic evaluation.
As Judy said, “It’s your world…it’s up to you!
Bill Barton is a member of the Wetlands and Water
Committee