MINNEAPOLIS — Developers of a long-delayed copper-nickel mine project in northeastern Minnesota announced Wednesday that they plan to conduct a series of studies over the next year on possible ways to improve environmental protections and make the mine more cost- and energy-efficient. That could lead to significant design changes.
The plan is for a $1 billion open-pit mine near Babbitt and a processing plant near Hoyt Lakes that would be Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine and produce minerals needed for the clean energy economy. It’s a 50-50 joint venture between Swiss commodities giant Glencore and Canada-based Teck Resources. The project was renamed NewRange Copper Nickel last yearbut it is still commonly known by its old name, PolyMet. The project has been stalled for several years due to court and regulatory setbacks, but company officials say they are continuing to prepare the site.
“The bottom line is this is all about improving efficiency, looking at ways to improve our carbon footprint and reduce greenhouse gases,” NewRange spokesman Bruce Richardson said in an interview. “If there is a net environmental benefit, which is one of the end goals here, then it’s pretty hard to criticize.”
But environmental groups opposed to the project said the announcement amounts to an admission that the current mining plan is fundamentally flawed. They say mining the vast untapped reserves of copper, nickel and platinum group metals beneath northeastern Minnesota would pose unacceptable environmental risks because of the potential for acid mine drainage of the sulfide-bearing ore.
“PolyMet is reconsidering every aspect of their mining plan after the court ordered them to do so,” Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said in an interview.
The studies in four key areas will look at alternative options for storing mine tailings, for water treatment, for accelerating production and for reducing carbon emissions. Any major changes will likely be subject to additional environmental reviews and new permitting processes, which NewRange officials said would include opportunities for public comment and feedback. They stressed that nothing has been decided yet and said they were announcing the studies in the interest of transparency for stakeholders, communities and tribes.
The current plan is to store the mine waste in the former LTV Steel iron mine tailings pond at the processing plant. Colin Marsh, NewRange’s director of government and external affairs, said in an interview that they will investigate whether a different design for the dam at the upgraded pond, or storing the waste in old iron mine pits in the area, would be beneficial.
It is also looking at whether a transport system for moving ore from the mine to the plant would be more environmentally friendly than the current plan to use diesel trains, Marsh said.
While the company maintains that its current wastewater treatment plan meets the state’s strict standards for protecting wild rice fields downstream, he said they will also explore the feasibility of further improving the treatment.
And they will look at whether it would be beneficial to increase daily production from the currently planned 32,000 tons per day to 40,000 tons and run the mine for about 15 years instead of 20, without increasing the total amount mined over its life, Marsh said. The idea would be a more efficient mine, not a bigger mine, he said.
The developers thought they had all the necessary state and federal permits in place in 2018, but the project remains stalled by a series of court rulings. water drainage permit was sent back to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for further review. The overall mining permit was sent back to the state Department of Natural Resources because of concerns about the tailings pond design. And the Army Corps of Engineers withdrew a wetlands permit, They said it did not meet water quality standards set by a downstream tribe, so NewRange will have to reapply to proceed.
“The fact that Minnesota regulators allowed this flawed project to move forward and spent millions of unnecessary dollars defending the misguided decision shows that our regulators have failed the citizens they are meant to protect,” Chris Knopf, executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, said in a statement.
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This story has been corrected to correct spelling by NewRange official Colin Marsh.