The Biden Administration has cancelled the two mineral leases necessary for the Twin Metals project to proceed. In the near term, that’s good news. But, and it’s a big BUT in our opinion, there are other potential mining projects that may get developed regardless of the laws in place at the time. How can that be? you may well ask. Here’s one possible answer:
Legislative deal would exempt Cohasset project from some environmental review
A bill negotiated between the Republican-led Senate and the DFL-majority House says the plant won’t have to complete an extensive Environmental Impact Statement normally required for projects of its size.
Legislatures rarely feel bound to honor decisions made by their predecessors. On political grounds I can understand that. On scientific grounds, I categorically reject it unless the science changes materially. There’s a further problem to which we need to be sensitive if we rely on Minnesota’s “world class mining regulations.” Our regulatory agencies aren’t always world class when it comes to implementing such regulations as we have, those that the legislature hasn’t reclaimed to itself.
According to an article in MinnPost on a recent court ruling regarding a water pollution discharge permit for the PolyMet NorthMet project,
The court also affirmed an earlier district court ruling that the MPCA did not break permitting rules or systematically try to hide evidence of their actions when issuing the NPDES permit, a decision that followed allegations that the agency attempted to suppress EPA concerns.
The court did say, however, that they were not endorsing the actions of state regulators at the MPCA, who pressured the feds to not provide public written criticisms of the PolyMet permit, in part to avoid bad press.
“In other words, the PCA’s efforts to discourage the EPA from providing written comments during the public-comment period had the purpose and effect of avoiding or minimizing 17 public criticism of the proposed permit and, in addition, avoiding the need for the PCA to publicly respond in writing to the EPA’s comments,” the appeals court wrote.
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| how can we best protect such waters?
Photo by J. Harrington
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There may be a better way to protect Minnesota’s clean air, clean water, local communities and governmental integrity. We’re not referring to a “Prove It First” law, such as the one the Wisconsin legislature recently gutted. We suggest instead that Minnesota seriously evaluate becoming involved in the development of and ultimately adopt the standards being developed by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. As described in the prospective role for government:
Given the robust process behind IRMA’s creation and governance, governments can use IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining as a template for improving laws and regulations, particularly as it represents the views of diverse stakeholders. In this way, governments can be equally responsive to civil society as they are to business.
IRMA is careful to publicly state that its standard and voluntary assessment are meant to complement, not replace, laws and regulations. We agree with several in the civil society sector who correctly point out that voluntary initiatives should not delay or replace the adoption of improved laws. Indeed, strong regulations are critical in order to protect communities, the labor force, and the environment throughout the world.
In addition to multi-stakeholder involvement, the IRMA standards envision compliance auditing of corporate and mining sites.
Some might argue that the cancellation of Twin Metals leases and the gridlock of PolyMet permits demonstrates that Minnesota can manage without something like IRMA standards. I suspect we’d already be faced with at least one operating copper mine were it not for a multitude of environmental organizations and indigenous water protectors who have had the resources to engage in a multitude of court cases over a number of years. Our state agencies, in and of themselves, are not protecting us, plus, they can be overridden by the legislature. A process that involves many represented stakeholders, with mining compliance subject to audit, seems to offer a closer approximation of a transparent, truly world class permitting process than we now have. Mightn’t we be better off putting our efforts where our world class claims are?
North Country Blues
Written by: Bob Dylan
Come gather ’round friends
And I’ll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran plenty
But the cardboard filled windows
And old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty
In the north end of town
My own children are grown
But I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth
My mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother
The iron ore poured
As the years passed the door
The drag lines an’ the shovels they was a-humming
’Til one day my brother
Failed to come home
The same as my father before him
Well a long winter’s wait
From the window I watched
My friends they couldn’t have been kinder And my schooling was cut
As I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner
Oh the years passed again
And the givin’ was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born
The work was cut down
To a half a day’s shift with no reason
Then the shaft was soon shut
And more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
’Til a man come to speak
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closin’
They complained in the East
They are paying too high
They say that your ore ain’t worth digging
That it’s much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing
So the mining gates locked
And the red iron rotted
And the room smelled heavy from drinking
Where the sad, silent song
Made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking
I lived by the window
As he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
Then one morning’s wake
The bed it was bare
And I’s left alone with three children
The summer is gone
The ground’s turning cold
The stores one by one they’re a-foldin’
My children will go
As soon as they grow
Well, there ain’t nothing here now to hold them
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Please be kind to each other while you can.
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