A Winter's day thoughts

We hope you had a chance to get out and enjoy the beginning of our January thaw. Although we didn't get above freezing today, it's in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, and, maybe, tomorrow. Then, of course, temperatures will drop later in the week and bring with them the prospect of snow. The dogs and the dog walkers were much happier today than they have been for the past week. There were long lines at a local car wash. This is the kind of Winter weather even curmudgeons like us can enjoy.

Have you penciled into your calendar the DFL caucus on February 6? We're going to keep reminding you from time to time. We need a better approach to managing mining in Minnesota than trying to win a race to the bottom by reducing environmental standards or trading public land at less than fair market value. Unless, of course, you think the administration in Washington is doing the right thing by reducing national monuments and following a "drill, baby, drill" strategy, in which case we suspect you may not be found at a DFL caucus.

what would the St. Louis river at Jay Cooke look like if there were a tailings dam failure?

Photo by J. Harrington

Here's a related something you might want to think about. MNDNR has just put on public notice a draft Permit to Mine for the proposed PolyMet project. We've seen estimates that financial assurance requirements may run to between $500 million and $1 billion dollars, without accounting for an environmental disaster. Now, can you point to anywhere in the world that a mining disaster has been fully remediated by any amount of expenditures? If not, can you point to a Planet B and how is that we're to get there after we've trashed what's left of this world?

We recently came across a report that there are more than 15 certification programs for sustainable mining operations. (The Mining Association of Canada's program isn't listed.) To our current knowledge, none of these programs are operative, or even being considered, by PolyMet or the proposed Twin Metals project. Minnesota needs to get up to international standards for mining, don't you think?

                     Winter

By Billy Collins

A little heat in the iron radiator,

the dog breathing at the foot of the bed,

and the windows shut tight,

encrusted with hexagons of frost.

I can barely hear the geese

complaining in the vast sky,

flying over the living and the dead,

schools and prisons, and the whitened fields.

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