Isn’t MN as valuable as Montana?

Today’s posting will be short and, for me at least, sweet. I’ve been stewing (yes, me!) about this since I first read the announcement: ‘Gamechanger’: judge rules in favor of young activists in US climate trial. The decision was based, in large part, on provisions of the 1972 version of the Montana state constitution, as found in Part IX. ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES:

Protection And Improvement

Section 1. Protection and improvement. (1) The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.

(2) The legislature shall provide for the administration and enforcement of this duty.

(3) The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources.

does this not warrant constitutional protection?

Photo by J. Harrington

The Sierra Club has made available on line an extensive background to the Held decision. You can read that here. However, what has me perturbed is the information in an article in Bloomberg Law that notes:

Green amendments provide an explicit and unmistakable mandate to protect environmental rights with the same legal vigor, guided by the same constitutional mandates, given our most highly regarded fundamental rights and freedoms, such as free speech, freedom of religion, property rights, and gun rights. The clarity of instruction provided by green amendments leaves little room for anti-environment activism in any branch of government.

Three states already provide this highest green amendment protection for environmental rights and natural resources: Pennsylvania, Montana, and, as of 2021, New York.

At this moment, constitutional green amendments that protect the rights of all people to a clean, safe, and healthy environment, are advancing in states across our nation. Among the states with active green amendment campaigns are Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Washington.

Minnesota is not listed among those states that have adopted or are advancing constitutional rights to a clean and healthy environment. Why not?

Admittedly, Minnesota does have an Environmental Policy Act, which can be modified by the legislature. The environmental provisions in our constitution have to do with funding, not constitutional rights. They read as follows:

Sec. 14. Environment and natural resources fund.

A permanent environment and natural resources trust fund is established in the state treasury. Loans may be made of up to five percent of the principal of the fund for water system improvements as provided by law. The assets of the fund shall be appropriated by law for the public purpose of protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state's air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources. The amount appropriated each year of a biennium, commencing on July 1 in each odd-numbered year and ending on and including June 30 in the next odd-numbered year, may be up to 5-1/2 percent of the market value of the fund on June 30 one year before the start of the biennium. Not less than 40 percent of the net proceeds from any state-operated lottery must be credited to the fund until the year 2025.

[Adopted, November 8, 1988; Amended, November 6, 1990; November 3, 1998]

Sec. 15. Outdoor heritage, clean water, parks and trails, and arts and cultural heritage; sales tax dedicated funds.

Beginning July 1, 2009, until June 30, 2034, the sales and use tax rate shall be increased by three-eighths of one percent on sales and uses taxable under the general state sales and use tax law. Receipts from the increase, plus penalties and interest and reduced by any refunds, are dedicated, for the benefit of Minnesotans, to the following funds: 33 percent of the receipts shall be deposited in the outdoor heritage fund and may be spent only to restore, protect, and enhance wetlands, prairies, forests, and habitat for fish, game, and wildlife; 33 percent of the receipts shall be deposited in the clean water fund and may be spent only to protect, enhance, and restore water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams and to protect groundwater from degradation, and at least five percent of the clean water fund must be spent only to protect drinking water sources; 14.25 percent of the receipts shall be deposited in the parks and trails fund and may be spent only to support parks and trails of regional or statewide significance; and 19.75 percent shall be deposited in the arts and cultural heritage fund and may be spent only for arts, arts education, and arts access and to preserve Minnesota's history and cultural heritage. An outdoor heritage fund; a parks and trails fund; a clean water fund and a sustainable drinking water account; and an arts and cultural heritage fund are created in the state treasury. The money dedicated under this section shall be appropriated by law. The dedicated money under this section must supplement traditional sources of funding for these purposes and may not be used as a substitute. Land acquired by fee with money deposited in the outdoor heritage fund under this section must be open to the public taking of fish and game during the open season unless otherwise provided by law. If the base of the sales and use tax is changed, the sales and use tax rate in this section may be proportionally adjusted by law to within one-thousandth of one percent in order to provide as close to the same amount of revenue as practicable for each fund as existed before the change to the sales and use tax.

[Adopted, November 4, 2008]

Now, I am not a lawyer, so you might want to check with your state representative or senator or the governor’s office because I would love to learn that I’m wrong about this, and that Minnesotans have as much of a constitutional right to a clean environment as the citizens of Montana, Pennsylvania and New York. In fact, wouldn’t such an amendment help keep the mining companies and their promoters in line when they apply for hard rock mining permits?

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

********************************************
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Please be kind to each other while you can.

“Need to know” basis

I did succeed in making yesterday a #TweetlessTuesday. It actually felt good. Except for the agitation surrounding additional indictments of The Former Guy [TFG], I would have probably felt better still if I had stayed away from online news outlets. The ratio of depressing and/or frightening news stories to happy or good news must be st least 9 or 10 to 1. One of our local tv stations has provided a clue to responding to the relentless deluge of conspiracy, theories and actions. They have a segment each morning about 4 Things You Need to Know. After watching carefully for several mornings, I decided they were wrong. I didn’t need to know most of what they were pitching. I think I’ll take a similar approach to other online news reporting.

When I first began to contemplate the idea of “need to know” it brought me face to face with the question of how it applies to this blog. My answer is that rarely am I posting about what you need to know, but I hope we often (sometimes?) bring items you may want to know.

lower St. Croix River

Photo by J. Harrington

Today I’m back to looking at bioregions and their potential roles in creating a sustainable, regenerative future. We live in the St. Croix River watershed, a tributary to the Mississippi River watershed and close to the edge of the Great Lakes watershed. Water, watersheds and related factors will become more and more significant as world temperatures increase and geohydrologic cycles become disrupted. (Colorado River ring a bell?)

At the moment, the water quality in several Minnesota water bodies is threatened by nonferrous mining. The state Supreme Court just “suspended a key permit for the NorthMet copper-nickel mine in northern Minnesota on Wednesday, ruling that state regulators failed to fully consider the threat to water quality posed by the mine.” I would argue that in an increasingly water-stressed world, protecting the quality of the water we have is a top priority, followed by restoring the quality of water that fails to meer designated use standards. If our existing governmental structures were as committed to addressing climate breakdown as they claim, there should never have been a permit that "failed to fully consider the threat to water quality posed by the mine.”

All told, these days I’m returning more and more to many of my first loves: English, poetry, environment, nature, ethics, pllace. Ian McHarg, in Design with Nature, offers the right concepts. He just doesn’t take them far enough, but then he didn’t write it in our times.

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

By Robert Bly

No one grumbles among the oyster clans,

And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.

Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want

Heaven to be, and God to come, again.

There is no end to our grumbling; we want

Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.

But the heron standing on one leg in the bog

Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

********************************************
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Some errors of our era

We finally got lots of rain last night. The telltale puddle in the driveway was close to full this morning. Yesterday brought several severe storms to our north with winds and hail bringing down lots of leaves and some trees. Meanwhile, the UN secretary general has announced that “the era of global boiling has arrived.” Nevertheless the Biden administration has chosen to not (yet?) declare a climate emergency. Neither have I read that there are any pre-established triggers or criteria for such a declaration.

Meanwhile, closer to home, yet another aquifer puncture has been discovered along Enbridge's Line 3. I’ve not yet learned how all the fines in the world will actually restore the environment, sort of similar to how long it’s estimated to take for earth’s climate to begin to return to “normal” if we ever minimize greenhouse gas discharges. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is being sued to keep it from requiring approved manure management plans for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations [CAFOs]. In Minnesota, I wonder if there’s any state agency that does as much to support metals recycling as the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources does to support metals mining.

recycling before extraction

Photo by J. Harrington

Back when Manifest Destiny was aspirational, the colonizing powers gave away land to get the country “developed.” In 1972, the Clean Water Act Amendments updated and expanded the “Rivers and Harbors Act (1899), the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1948), the Water Quality Act (1965), and the Refuse Act (1970)” Folks are still debating the interpretation and coverage of that legislation. There has been no comparable update to the Mining Act of 1872. We have long “settled” and colonized the country from coast to coast. We no longer need to promote extractive industries as an economic development strategy. Protecting and restoring clean air, water, food sovereignty and, probably, manufacturing are more critical priorities if we wish to have a survivable future, let alone a sustainable one.

There’s an old saying in the planning profession: “More of the same never solved a problem.” The same is true of law and politics. We can and must do better and stop the “same old, same old” solutions.

Value Added

By Stephen Sandy

No one knew what the stones like squatting frogs

signified. There they were, fuming in rows, out

of the ground; every critic had his explanation

or hers. But—we had to remember—they

 

came to nothing, every one; those large stones

out of the earth served the systems

of those who considered them, as explaining

something about the past it was important

 

for the explainer to explain. And yet

no one had any idea truly; there was no

basis in fact for any view of them, and

they remained like their origins—or like

 

smiling Olmec babies, sweet but ominous figures

come from the earth to reproach us, almost

cheerfully, for our ignorance—a mystery, just

as the probe of our feelings came up with nothing.

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Restoring the middle class to what?

We are currently in the Red Zone of an Air Quality Alert. The Alert continues through 6 am Friday. This, and conditions like it, make me fuss and fret and fume about the kind of world my almost three year old granddaughter will inherit. Meanwhile, much of mainstream media and social media is agog over the federal indictment of a former president who should never have been nominated, let alone elected.

Current air quality conditions 6/14/23 ~4:30 pm

Locally, we’re back in a moderate drought. I’m glad I’m not a local farmer with corn in the field. Of course, if much of that corn is being raised as a feedstock for biofuels or animal feed, any sympathy I have is sorely tested. There’s a new farm bill being drafted. Any bets on whether it will have air or water quality mandates as prerequisites for any kind of federal subsidies?

President Biden and the Democrats are touting their successes at restoring the middle class and growing the economy. Have they done anything to educate the American public about the fact that we’re living on borrowed time (see preceding two paragraphs)? If politics is always a short term game won by pandering to US voters, where and when does a long game of preserving and restoring our home planet come into play? As those older and wiser than I have noted, “There are no jobs on a dead planet!” Meanwhile, The Guardian informs US that Shell drops target to cut oil production as CEO aims for higher profits.

I would suggest those of US with descendants, or who hope to have some, consider a flat out revolution that results in the only corporate entities allowed to exist have to be:

• certified B corps  
• fair trade certified
• compatible and consistent with Patagonia’s Supply Chain Environmental Responsibility Program
• if an extractive industry, a member of an operating in accord with the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance standards and audits.

What would you add to this list? The pieces of the puzzle of creating a sustainable world are here, we need to make sure those we elect and buy from support a thriving future for US. We’re not there yet, in part because we waste way too much time on trivia.

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Could agriculture become the new mining?

In meteorological terms, we're close to midsummer, July 17. Astronomically, it won't occur until August 6. Whichever system you prefer, we're near peak summer. We picked up our first community supported agriculture summer share this past Thursday. It included:

• garlic scapes
• broccoli
• cabbage
• cucumbers
• salad turnips
• purple kohlrabi, and
• golden beets

Our local big box grocery store has sweet corn on sale and watermelon [probably not local] for sale. If both were local, we'd be at high summer.

dawn of a new era for agriculture?

Photo by J. Harrington

Lots of the area's field corn and soy bean fields are looking healthier than I expected to see after our unseasonable extended hot spell. Apparently we've been getting just enough rain to keep the commodity crops happy. No sign of tassels on the corn yet. Our local fields of commodity crops may be  consumed locally or be sold internationally. Donella Meadows has several interesting observations about making mid-sized farms sustainable. Among those observations is:

Some of the most interesting experiments weaving together these policies are in the specialty cheese and wine regions of Europe, where certified regional identity and stewardship incentives are combined with supply management collective agreements. When I have taken US farmers and extension specialists to French cheese-making regions, they have been universally impressed by farm prosperity, traditional landscapes, and community vitality.

Being  impressed by "farm prosperity, traditional landscapes, and community vitality" may or may not be enough to overcome entrenched attitudes fortified by the "not invented here" syndrome. And yet, we keep seeing farms get bigger and rural populations get smaller. The more that happens, the more farming resembles another extractive industry, mining. There's been increased participation during the  past few years in an organization known as the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. Maybe we would all benefit if there was a comparable organization and standards adopted for farming, standards that  looked beyond maximizing yield and at social and environmental impacts of extractive production.

The Farmer

By W.D. Ehrhart

Each day I go into the fields 

to see what is growing

and what remains to be done.

It is always the same thing: nothing

is growing, everything needs to be done.

Plow, harrow, disc, water, pray

till my bones ache and hands rub

blood-raw with honest labor—

all that grows is the slow

intransigent intensity of need.

I have sown my seed on soil

guaranteed by poverty to fail.

But I don’t complain—except

to passersby who ask me why

I work such barren earth.

They would not understand me

if I stooped to lift a rock

and hold it like a child, or laughed,

or told them it is their poverty

I labor to relieve. For them,

I complain. A farmer of dreams

knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams

knows what it means to be patient.

Each day I go into the fields.

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Past time to adopt a Doughnut Economy

 We got some welcome news today, along with slowly rising temperatures. The Ford Motor Company is joining the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) "consistent with Ford responsible sourcing strategy..." As more major manufacturers  move toward electric powered fleets, and responsible (sustainable) sourcing becomes more critical to marketing, cost control, and risk management, is Minnesota putting itself and its industries at a significant disadvantage by weakening its own environmental standards and permitting requirements?

Here are some examples of what we're referring to:

• Auditor slams Minnesota Pollution Control Agency over Water Gremlin pollution (violated its air permit for more than 15 years)


• Big plan to change Minnesota’s water quality rules ("In its comments, the federal Environmental Protection Agency points out that removing numeric limits for various pollutants in Class 3 and Class 4 waters strips those protections from all waters, because they are not currently mentioned in the standards for any other class.")


• Minnesota Court of Appeals sends PolyMet permit back to MPCA


• Minnesota falls further away from greenhouse gas reduction goals but
  (Reclaiming Its Place As America’s Clean Energy North Star Could Add $11 Billion To Minnesota’s Economy)


• The MPCA Citizens' Board met for the last time on June 23, 2015. The board was eliminated through actions of the 2015 Minnesota Legislature.

These are only some of the contentious cases and issues to which the Pollution Control Agency seems to be responding strategically by weakening, or not enforcing, environmental and permit standards. If, as players in a global economy, others follow FoMoCo's lead to seek suppliers certified for responsible mining, how will Minnesota fare? Not well in the long run we suspect.

Doughnut Economy

Have you heard the old saying about "Mother Nature bats last?" Do you suppose it's occurred to anyone other than radical environmentalists that allowing industrial manufacturing the same environmental leniency that has been permitted for industrial agriculture is a relatively sure, short term way to minimize the success of the human race? Has the world economy done a good job of responding to the current COVID-19 pandemic? What makes anyone think it will be any better the next time? It is past time to behave as if we realize that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. The world is not on track to meet the goals set and adopted as part of the Paris Agreement. The most productive soils in the corn belt have already been washed into the Gulf of Mexico. Lip service and con jobs and, especially, regulatory capture will not enable a successful, sustainable, global economy. The current economy is killing its own markets.

Among better ways to measure and track what's needed are Doughnut Economics, as proposed by Kate Raworth and adopted by increasing numbers of governments throughout the world.

Economics

Victoria Redel - 1959-

There were strollers, outgrown, circulated till a wheel fell off.

Anna’s infant RockaRoo went to Francesca then to Sophia

who gave it back to Anna when she had the twins.

Travel cribs traveled between homes and the green vest

Sophia knitted for Ming’s first was worn by all the next babies.

Onesies, drawstring gowns, snap-legged overalls,

snowsuits, sweatpants, jeans, t-shirts, jumpers,

all sorted, washed, boxed then sent on

till they were sorted, washed, boxed and sent again.

Pj’s worn to that silkiest perfection, then worn 

wholly through, reluctantly tossed. A blue dress

with applique lilacs was the favorite of each girl

and who knew where the velvet blazer came from,

but it did the job for more than one holiday concert.

Even this year, a photograph of Francesca’s youngest in
      Prague,

handsome in that hand-me-down wool pea coat. Sophia hit
      reply all:

Our last? No! Well, fits yours better than it ever did mine.

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Minnesota isn't ready for Twin Metals, but it could be!

The folks at Twin Metals Minnesota have submitted a Mine Plan of Operations to the federal government (Bureau of Land Management) and a Scoping Environmental Assessment Worksheet to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The newspaper story in the Star Tribune didn't mention red ribbons or bows so maybe the documents aren't intended as a Christmas present.

Twin Metals Ely, MN offices

Photo by J. Harrington

Since it is likely to take years before the issues related to this proposed project will get sorted out, let alone resolved, we think this is a good time to refresh some fundamentals about mining and sustainable development. The best approach we've found thus far is in a framework called The Natural Step, which posits Four System Conditions:

In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing: 

1. concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust, 

2. concentrations of substances produced by society, 

3. degradation by physical means and, in that society... 

4. people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

No doubt in the days, months, and years ahead, we will be subjected to repeated assertions to the effect that Minnesota and the United States have the most rigorous environmental standards when it comes to mining. And yet, and yet, we have damn few, if any, mines that do not contribute significant amounts of pollution and that don't "degrade by physical means." Trout Unlimited, an organization I've belonged to for years and years, notes, in regard to hard rock mining, that "Approximately 110,000 miles of streams – enough to circle the Earth four times – are listed as impaired for heavy metals or acidity and abandoned mines are a major source of these impairments." We're still waiting to read about examples of mines that have not severely degraded and/or polluted their environment.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] has organized a noteworthy amount of information on "Environmentally Sensitive 'Green' Mining." We're very dubious that Minnesota's standards are comparable to the "Environmentally Conscious Mining Standards" MIT lists and describes. Plus, we've seen little, if any, indication that Minnesota's regulatory agencies, or politicians, are the least bit familiar with a book coauthored by a senior lecturer at MIT, Peter Senge. It's titled The Necessary Revolution. One final point, for today, is that we have yet to find any indication that Minnesota is aware of and has considered adopting international mining standards that may meet or exceed current site and federal requirements. The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance [IRMA] has developed and published standards. They can be found here.

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

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The Green New Deal: construction jobs in Northern MN?

A house divided against itself, cannot stand. ~ A. Lincoln

Remember the old saying about how "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging!"? There's some fussing and fuming coming from the general area of the Iron Range now that presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, supports better alternatives than #Line3 and the Twin Metals project. Warren is a Senate cosponsor of S.Res.59, A resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.

Salon magazine (online) has picked up an insightful piece from TomDispatch that explores

Jobs, the environment, and a planet in crisis: How the Green New Deal is changing America

Unions vs. environmentalists or unions and environmentalists?

Fleshing out the concepts in the Green New Deal resolution, and funding the projects that emerge and get approved, including repairing much of the US' infrastructure, should provide lots of local, living wage or better construction jobs on or near the Range.

Minnesota has too many divides

Photo by J. Harrington

According to several reports we've read, unions and Native Americans each have concerns about how the Green New Deal may get implemented. We would respectfully suggest that clearly identifying what changes are needed may be a more beneficial course of action than simply complaining about what's in the resolution or the extent to which some interests were or were not consulted in the drafting process.

One area that the Salon/TomDispatch article flagged is the interest of some unions in carbon capture and storage (CCS) construction jobs. The Drawdown project lists Direct Air Capture as a "Coming Attraction," not a readily implementable element of current climate breakdown solutions. Approaches like "clean coal" aren't mentioned at all.

Building pipelines for energy sources that worsen the climate breakdown problem when there's an electric grid that needs rebuilding and all the deferred maintenance projects on roads, bridges, airports, wastewater treatment plants, etc. seems highly counterproductive. These efforts, plus the necessary shift to a low carbon economy will increase demand for copper, The copper industry is aware of that and making international efforts to make the mining and processing of copper more sustainable. It would be interesting and informative to compare the best practices in Minnesota with the environmental solutions undertaken in Europe.

If we are to function as #OneMinnesota, we need to learn to have conversations instead of throwing brickbats. Has anyone really looked at how much of Minnesota's mining best practices meet or exceed international best practices for copper mining? Is there a report or has there been a symposium? And,by any chance, does Minnesota actually have any sort of minerals policy?

The Planet Krypton

By Lynn Emanuel

Outside the window the McGill smelter

sent a red dust down on the smoking yards of copper,

on the railroad tracks’ frayed ends disappeared

into the congestion of the afternoon. Ely lay dull

and scuffed: a miner’s boot toe worn away and dim,

while my mother knelt before the Philco to coax

the detonation from the static. From the Las Vegas

Tonapah Artillery and Gunnery Range the sound

of the atom bomb came biting like a swarm

of bees. We sat in the hot Nevada dark, delighted,

when the switch was tripped and the bomb hoisted

up its silky, hooded, glittering, uncoiling length;

it hissed and spit, it sizzled like a poker in a toddy.

The bomb was no mind and all body; it sent a fire

of static down the spine. In the dark it glowed like the coils

of an electric stove. It stripped every leaf from every

branch until a willow by a creek was a bouquet

of switches resinous, naked, flexible, and fine.

Bathed in the light of KDWN, Las Vegas,

my crouched mother looked radioactive, swampy,

glaucous, like something from the Planet Krypton.

In the suave, brilliant wattage of the bomb, we were

not poor. In the atom’s fizz and pop we heard possibility

uncorked. Taffeta wraps whispered on davenports.

A new planet bloomed above us; in its light

the stumps of cut pine gleamed like dinner plates.

The world was beginning all over again, fresh and hot;

we could have anything we wanted.

********************************************
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Should mining be governed by international or regional standards?

Mining is clearly an international business that has contributed jobs to the economies and pollution to  the environment of Minnesota and several other Great Lakes States. Historical results frame the issue as one of jobs or the environment. This continues to be the situation in many countries less economically developed than the U.S. or Canada. North America's environmental regulations, however, are fragmented and have had limited success in moving the metals and mining sector toward responsible mining and sustainable development. Over the past few decades, however, as we've noted elsewhere in this series, international efforts to make development sustainable and to include the mining sector in that effort have occurred. One of the more holistic approaches has been followed by the United Nations, a major international player.

The United Nations has adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals. With a specific focus on the mining sector, it has fostered the preparation of the report: Mapping Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals: An Atlas.

The Atlas maps the relationship between mining and the SDGs by using examples of good practice in the industry and existing knowledge and resources in sustainable development that if replicated or scaled up could make useful contributions to the SDGs. Mining companies, their staff, management and boards are the primary audience for the Atlas. The Atlas is also intended to advance the conversation about how mining companies, can work collaboratively with governments, communities, civil society and other partners to contribute to achieve the SDGs.

In some ways even more relevant to Minnesota and the Great Lakes region, the United Nations has crafted a multi-year strategy, the UN Global Compact, to drive business awareness and action in support of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 . One aspect of the compact is The CEO Water Mandate, which has, as of this writing, almost 150 business signatories, including a handful from the metals and mining sector. Unfortunately, neither Glencore/PolyMet nor Antofagasta/Twin Metals are listed as having signed that Mandate.

The Mandate is a commitment platform for business leaders and learners to advance water stewardship. Endorsing companies commit to action across six key elements and report annually on progress. In implementing water stewardship, endorsing companies also  identify and reduce critical water risks to their businesses, seize water-related opportunities, and contribute to water security and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Either or both Glencore/Polymet or Antofagasta/Twin Metals could add credibility to their claims of responsible mining and development if they actually walked their talk. Instead, what we see are behaviors based on compliance with watered-down environmental and financial requirements imposed by the state's permitting agencies. Compliance is not a valid substitute for ethical corporate behavior. Conversely, while it's possible we've missed something significant, we've seen no indication Minnesota has given thought to or been engaged in any of the activities that could offer substantial contributions to help protect both the state's economy and its environment. Inaction or inept action won't get us there. Sitting on laurels for too long may result in an uncomfortable rash.

These are the last two stanzas of the poem we've picked to complement this series. It's a long poem but, we believe, fits really well with the theme we've developed. If we truly want a future with both good jobs and a healthy, sustainable environment, conflict resolution offers a more productive strategy than does continuing conflict. we hope you concur.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

5. ELIMINATE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES DURING CONFLICT:

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.

The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions.

The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away.

He hears the death song of his approaching prey:

I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.


6. AND, USE WHAT YOU LEARN TO RESOLVE YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AND TO MEDIATE OTHERS' CONFLICTS:

When we made it back home, back over those curved roads
that wind through the city of peace, we stopped at the
doorway of dusk as it opened to our homelands.
We gave thanks for the story, for all parts of the story
because it was by the light of those challenges we knew
ourselves—
We asked for forgiveness.
We laid down our burdens next to each other.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Could PolyMet/Northmet be third-party certified as a Responsible Mine?

Back in the days before we became a recovering planner, we met a number of residents and officials of various units of local government, particularly townships and counties, who had been sure that they didn't need zoning, or their ordinance didn't need to cover certain uses, until it did. Sometimes, then, it was too late. They were faced with the proverbial need to lock a barn door after the horse was inside.

What started us thinking about these situations was a paragraph we reread in The Meaning of Wilderness: essential articles and speeches / Sigurd F. Olson. On page 56 we find the following:

The only hope of preserving a few remnants of the old wilderness ... is to work out a comprehensive zoning plan in which the entire country will be classified as to the type of recreational land use it is best suited for.

Olson was advocating to prevent overflights and/or, especially, aviation access to the Boundary Waters and similar areas. His concept, it seems to us, is sound but has, to our knowledge, lain dormant, to the detriment of those who would protect the wilderness from extractive industries.

does anything protect Minnesota's Sawtooths from mountaintop removal mining?

Photo by J. Harrington

Here's a challenge! See if you can find out what zoning, if any, applies to the site(s) of the PolyMet / NorthMet project or the Twin Metals location. Are there setback requirements from wetlands, streams, rivers or contiguous properties? To provide a sense of what you're looking for, follow the link to an online version of a Minnesota Model Mining Ordinance prepared under the auspices of the Saint Croix River Association. We believe it was developed in anticipation of a proposed sand and gravel operation near the Wild and Scenic River.

The significance of national, state and local designations of recreational areas, and the land use controls that govern them and surrounding areas (buffers) becomes particularly relevant in the case of responsible and sustainable mining operations. One of the standards we haven't yet mentioned in this series of posts is from the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance [IRMA]. It explicitly states that:

3.7.5.3. IRMA will not certify new mines that are developed in or that adversely affect the following protected areas if those areas were designated to protect cultural values (see also Chapter 4.6):193

• World Heritage Sites, and areas on a State Party’s official Tentative List for World Heritage Site Inscription;

• International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) protected area management categories I-III; and

• Core areas of UNESCO biosphere reserves.

3.7.5.4. An existing mine located entirely or partially in a protected area listed in 3.7.5.3 shall demonstrate that:

a. The mine was developed prior to the area’s official designation;

b. Management plans have been developed and are being implemented to ensure that activities during the remaining mine life cycle will not permanently and materially damage the integrity of the cultural values for which the area was designated or recognized; and

c. The operating company collaborates with relevant management authorities to integrate the mine’s management strategies into the protected area’s management plan.

3.7.5.5. To safeguard irreplaceable cultural heritage and respect indigenous peoples’ right to self- determination, the operating company shall not carry out new exploration or develop new mines in areas where indigenous peoples are known to live in voluntary isolation.

For our purposes, the IUCN provision is particularly relevant, since we believe the Boundary Waters falls into one of the categories, or at least qualifies for inclusion. Our major point today, however, is that there are a number of established protective strategies and techniques that could be used to both improve the environmental performance of mining operations in Minnesota, and make them more acceptable neighbors. This would, or at least should, enhance their ability to obtain the "social license" needed to get mining and environmental permits. Why are not more of the actors in Minnesota's economic development and environmental protection sectors doing more about this. Wouldn't it be a more productive way to protect both jobs and the environment than to engage in a never-ending series of public relations, legislative and court battles over each and every mine proposal? PolyMet NorthMet claims they are "Committed to Responsible Mining." If they are serious about that, they can apply for certification.

We're going to share the usual poem we put here one stanza at a time. It's a long poem but, we believe, fits really well with the theme we're developing.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

4. REDUCE DEFENSIVENESS AND BREAK THE DEFENSIVENESS CHAIN:

I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing.

We are here dancing, they said. There was no there.

There was no  "I"  or "you."

There was us; there was "we."

There we were as if we were the music.

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries—

—Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other.

We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Recommendations for "Responsible Mining in the Lake Superior Basin"

Less than a decade ago, there was an organization called the Lake Superior Binational Forum (Lake Superior Binational Forum Funding Has Been Eliminated by US EPA). In 2013 it drafted a statement on Responsible Mining in the Lake Superior Basin which contains

... recommendations for future mining operations, briefly summarized as follows:

1. Develop a common set of criteria for use by governments, NGOs and industry to guide the permitting process. Currently public agencies use different criteria in each state.

2. Avoid mining in places with high environmental or social/cultural value.

3. Improve public participation by stakeholders in the environmental assessment process through the collection of adequate baseline data; consideration of potential worst-case scenarios; and independent third-party review processes.

4. Water quality objectives that are consistent with the LAMP should be developed.

5. Overburden and tailings should be discharged into water bodies or wetlands; acid-generating materials should be segregated; and hazardous materials plans should be made public.

6. Companies should make atmospheric emission reports. Environmental assessments should consider greenhouse gas emissions from mining operations.

7. Companies should set aside financial resources for the exploration phase to cover clean-ups, reclamation and long-term monitoring. The public should have the right to comment on the adequacy of these resources and reclamation activities.

8. The public should have the right to access monitoring and periodic technical reports during the life of the mining operation; and to do independent third-party review of the process.

9. Companies should have a reclamation plan with resources set aside for each operation. Mined areas should be re-contoured and stabilized.

10. Citizen participation and oversight are important elements listed under “social impacts and decision making,” including the engagement of Tribal Nations, First Nations and Metis.

11. Research is needed on the cumulative and indirect effects of mining; climate change and mining impacts; and human health research, including impacts on people, fish and wild rice.

overlooking the St. Louis River entering Duluth Harbor and Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

The Lake Superior LAMP 2015-2019 notes this about mining's impacts [p. 48 & 49]:

The Lake Superior basin has a long history of mining operations and related impacts. While mining operations can offer economic benefits, they also present threats to the environment. For example, two Great Lakes Areas of Concern, Deer Lake and Torch Lake, were so designated in the Lake Superior basin due to impacts from past mining operations. Fourteen mines currently operate in the Lake Superior basin, with many explorations and expansions underway. Current and/or past mines in the basin have extracted gold, silver, copper, platinum, palladium, nickel, zinc, diamond, lead, iron-ore and taconite, as well as quarried brownstone. Mining impacts cannot be easily reversed –some can cause far reaching and lasting environmental damage. Mining activity has the potential to impairwater quality(e.g., mining is currently the largest source of mercury emissions from within the Lake Superior basin) and degrade habitat (e.g., through increased sediments). Mining sediments in the nearshore, embayments,and river mouths may cover or degrade fish spawning habitats, Wild Rice and other natural resources. After a mine closes, it can remain a source of contamination from chemicals and waste rock piles; tailing ponds must be monitored and maintained for centuries to avoid environmental impacts. 

Recent developments regarding the water discharge permit issued by the Minnesota Pollution Control  Agency make it, at best, questions whether Minnesota is honoring recommendations 3, 8 and 10. The lack of Water Quality Based Effluent Limits in the issued permit would seem to make it impossible to determine consistency with any water quality objective found in or derived from the LAMP.

In order to assess whether mining is responsible and sustainable, both process and substantive criteria should be agreed upon and compliance with those criteria should be regularly assessed in a transparent process. In Minnesota, we don't seem to be there yet.

We're going to share the usual poem we put here one stanza at a time. It's a long poem but, we believe, fits really well with the theme we're developing.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

3. GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:

We speak together with this trade language of English. This trade language enables us to speak across many language boundaries. These languages have given us the poets:

Ortiz, Silko, Momaday, Alexie, Diaz, Bird, Woody, Kane, Bitsui, Long Soldier, White, Erdrich, Tapahonso, Howe, Louis, Brings Plenty, okpik, Hill, Wood, Maracle, Cisneros, Trask, Hogan, Dunn, Welch, Gould...

The 1957 Chevy is unbeatable in style. My broken-down one-eyed Ford will have to do. It holds everyone: Grandma and grandpa, aunties and uncles, the children and the babies, and all my boyfriends. That's what she said, anyway, as she drove off for the Forty-Nine with all of us in that shimmying wreck.

This would be no place to be without blues, jazz—Thank you/mvtoto the Africans, the Europeans sitting in, especially Adolphe Sax with his saxophones... Don't forget that at the center is the Mvskoke ceremonial circles. We know how to swing. We keep the heartbeat of the earth in our stomp dance feet.

You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Is "responsible mining" greenwash?

According to today's Star Tribune, "Mining giant Glencore gains majority control of PolyMet." Meanwhile, there are a number of ongoing court cases opposing several of the permits necessary for development of the PolyMet / NorthMet mine operation in Minnesota. That's the one over which Glencore just gained majority control.

Glencore is one of 30 mining companies that participated in a 2018 Responsible Mining Foundation evaluation of "best mining practices." We haven't yet reached a decision on whether we believe the Responsible Mining Index [RMI] 2018 is a real step forward or the beginning of a "greenwash" campaign, but we think the RMI effort at least should be considered by those Minnesota decision makers pondering whether Minnesota's mining and environmental protection rules and regulations, even if they were actually followed and enforced, begin to approach world class status. As the RMI report itself notes:

The RMI 2018 results show that if one company were to attain all the highest scores achieved for every indicator, it would reach over 70% of the maximum achievable score. This implies that existing best practice, if systematically applied by all companies, could already go some way to meeting society expectations. [emphasis added]

We suggest that the emphasized phrase could also be stated "it would reach only 70% of the maximum achievable..." Might such a condition be comparable to Minnesota's mining standards?

By way of some additional background, a 2011 article in the guardian notes that "Mining and commodities giant Glencore has suffered dozens of fatalities and been subject to six-figure fines for environmental breaches, the company revealed on Wednesday." The Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness blog has a recent posting describing troublesome histories of both Glencore and Antofagasta, the mover behind a proposed Twin Metals mine near the Boundary Waters. Our reading of the RMI report suggests how easily such problems can be glossed over (greenwashed). However, that same report consistently rates Glencore amount the top third of responsible mining companies. In four of the six categories, Antofagasta rates just ahead of Glencore, but is out of the top ten in two others.

Northern Minnesota's water riches need better protection

Photo by J. Harrington

All of this suggests that the entire mining sector has a significant way to go to be considered responsible, let alone sustainable. Here's a quick summary of where Glencore and Antofagasta rate in each of six major categories used in the report. It's worth noting that none of the mine-site specific criteria included any North American locations.

• Economic Development
  Glencore #10 (4 way tie), Antofagasta #9


• Business Conduct
  Glencore #8, Antofagasta #4


• Lifecycle Management
  Glencore #10, Antofagasta #9


• Community Wellbeing
  Glencore #9, Antofagasta #NA


• Working Conditions
  Glencore #5, Antofagasta #NA


• Environmental Responsibility
  Glencore #5, Antofagasta #7

A Key Finding in the report is directly relevant to current issues surrounding the permits issued last December for the PolyMet Glencore NorthMet operation. It's similar to some things we've advocated in past postings and a variant on "Sunlight is the best disinfectant!" philosophy.

National, international and multi-stakeholder reporting requirements clearly lead to more and better reporting and public disclosure. Stronger reporting is evident where companies align their public reporting with, for example, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), the Carbon Disclosure Project, or mandatory reporting requirements.

We're going to share the usual poem we put here one stanza at a time. It's a long poem but, we believe, fits really well with the theme we're developing.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT:

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing.

A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice.

If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it.

At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers.

There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. "It feels like wartime," said a child welfare worker in South Dakota.

If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them.

We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us.

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one.

We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise.

The sun rose over the Potomac this morning, over the city surrounding the white house.
It blazed scarlet, a fire opening truth.
White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice.
We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times
Since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance.
These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Can mining be sustainable in Minnesota?

Back around the turn of the millennium, I read a book by John Elkington titled Cannibals With Forks. The title derives from a question the Polish poet Stanislaw Lec asked, “Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?” Reading recent articles about mining in Minnesota and the degree to which environmental regulators might be aiding and abetting mining companies who cannibalize Minnesota's social and natural environment, leads me to believe that, if we want to progress, it's past time for a new and more rigorous framework for permitting mines and mining in this state. We offer the following outline not because we expect it to be fully adopted, but because we've seen so little recognition that others have already mined the vein of making mining sustainable. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Let's start with four principles identified as a basis for The Natural Step approach to sustainability:

In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing …

1. … concentrations of substances from the earth’s crust (such as fossil CO2 and heavy metals),
2. … concentrations of substances produced by society (such as antibiotics and endocrine disruptors),
3. … degradation by physical means (such as deforestation and draining of groundwater tables),

…and in that society …

4. … there are no structural obstacles to people’s health, influence, competence, impartiality and meaning.

These factors are explored in some detail at Is there Mining in a Sustainable Society.

Another basic approach is described by Donella Meadows in Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development, in which she wrote:

The three most basic aggregate measures of sustainable development are the sufficiency with which ultimate ends are realized for all people, the efficiency with which ultimate means are translated into ultimate ends, and the sustainability of use of ultimate means.

Those aggregate measures translate into the following basic hierarchy (see page 42 in the linked report for a more complete description):

• Well-being (ultimate ends)
• Social capital (intermediate ends)
• Human capital (intermediate means/ends)
• Built capital (intermediate means)
• Natural capital (ultimate means) 

To put it in simple terms related to mining, the natural capital of ore is extracted and processed using built and human capital that creates jobs in healthy communities (social capital) inhabited by fulfilled, healthy families living in a healthy environment (well-being).

iron mine "spoils" Minnesota's Iron Range

Photo by J. Harrington

Not many / any mining operations function sustainably today and, in historical terms, the situation has been even worse. That's why there are so many abandoned mines continuing to pollute the environment with toxic substances. We'll touch on some of those details in coming days. For now, be aware that there's a significant gap between any mining operation and a sustainable community, but, it may not have to be that way. To get near sustainable mining in Minnesota will require more than more stringent regulations. Would that it were that simple.

We're going to share the usual poem we put here a stanza at a time. It's a long poem but, we believe, fits really well with the theme.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

I am the holy being of my mother's prayer and my father's song
                                                      —Norman Patrick Brown, Dineh Poet and Speaker

1. SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES:

Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.
Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane.
Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill.
The land is a being who remembers everything.
You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs—
The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding.
As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard:
By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
Do not parade, pleased with yourself.
You must speak in the language of justice.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.