An ounce of prevention?

Every once in awhile we encounter something that, at least surficially, seems to validate that, at least on occasion, our tendency to tilt at windmills may serve a worthwhile purpose. One of the folks we met with up in Duluth last Friday sent us a copy of a research paper we hadn't seen. We doubt that the title will ever make it to a best seller list, but it should be mandatory reading for those concerned with the future on mining in Minnesota.

The authors of In the Dark Shadow of the Supercycle Tailings Failure Risk & Public Liability Reach All Time Highs write:

A major purpose of this paper is to describe this crisis of conflicting public interest and miner priorities. The authors believe strongly that an all-stakeholders multi-disciplinary approach to resolving this dilemma can resolve it to the satisfaction of all. The authors do not believe that we need to accept the present high level of catastrophic failure as the new elevated cost of meeting the words needs for metals, hydrocarbons and fertilizers. The partnership in research failure studies that the authors have formed is premised on the belief that at the global level, the world’s needs for metals, hydrocarbons and fertilizers can be met, responsibly in the short term, and sustainably in the long term. 

The quoted paragraph contains two factors we believe are critical to the future of mining, especially copper-sulfide mining, in Minnesota. It must be subject to "an all-stakeholders multi-discilplenary approach to resolving" "conflicting public interest and miner priorities." It should be based on the premise that "the world’s needs for metals, hydrocarbons and fertilizers can be met, responsibly in the short term, and sustainably in the long term."

what would this stretch of the St. Louis River look like if, upstream, a tailings dam failed?

Photo by J. Harrington

There remains a significant semantic issue of whether and how non-renewable resources such as metal ores can be considered sustainable. Reuse and recycling will have to play a more significant role than they do today. Responsible extraction will have to reduce its environmental and negative social impacts. We have been arguing that our existing regulatory system is inadequate to address the challenges we face. The linked paper endorses such concerns, as does the British Columbia Auditor General's report on the Mount Polley tailings dam failure. Minnesotans would do well to consider whether conclusions similar to the following might be applicable to the permitting and regulatory enforcement process of copper-sulfide mine proposals.

We conducted this audit to determine whether the regulatory compliance and enforcement activities of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) and the Ministry of Environment (MoE), pertaining to mining, are protecting the province from signi cant environmental risks.

We found almost every one of our expectations for a robust compliance and enforcement program within the MEM and the MoE were not met.

We found major gaps in resources, planning and tools. As a result, monitoring and inspections of mines were inadequate to ensure mine operators complied with requirements. e ministries have not publicly disclosed the limitations with their compliance and enforcement programs, increasing environmental risks, and government’s ability to protect the environment. 

Some of Minnesota's regulatory agencies have already been challenged on their ability to protect the environment from some of mining's negative impacts. The linked paper notes that, as the quality of ores diminishes, the risk of failure of tailings dams increases. No amount of financial assurance can guarantee a restored environment if failure occurs. That's why an all-stakeholder approach is needed, to protect the value of these resources.

                     Axe Handles

By Gary Snyder

One afternoon the last week in April

Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet

One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.

He recalls the hatchet-head

Without a handle, in the shop

And go gets it, and wants it for his own.

A broken-off axe handle behind the door

Is long enough for a hatchet,

We cut it to length and take it

With the hatchet head

And working hatchet, to the wood block.

There I begin to shape the old handle

With the hatchet, and the phrase

First learned from Ezra Pound

Rings in my ears!

"When making an axe handle

                 the pattern is not far off."

And I say this to Kai

"Look: We'll shape the handle

By checking the handle

Of the axe we cut with—"

And he sees. And I hear it again:

It's in Lu Ji's Wên Fu, fourth century

A.D. "Essay on Literature"-—in the

Preface: "In making the handle

Of an axe

By cutting wood with an axe

The model is indeed near at hand."

My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen

Translated that and taught it years ago

And I see: Pound was an axe,

Chen was an axe, I am an axe

And my son a handle, soon

To be shaping again, model

And tool, craft of culture,

How we go on.

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