Mining’s Devastating and Lasting Impact on the Environment

At Earth & Body Wise, we are passionate about improving our personal health as well as maintaining the health of our beautiful planet Earth. That’s why we decided to start out writing about our life experiences and ultimately, how these experiences help fuel our inner drive for change. In this article, I want to concentrate on one industry in particular: metal ore mining. In mankind’s drive to “Go Green” or to achieve “Carbon Neutrality” or to drive an “Emission Free” vehicle, the need for minerals like iron, lithium, precious and semi-precious metals is accelerating while the available known ore deposits are diminishing. All of these lofty goals require more mines, which in turn means more environmental devastation. Every single time. Unfortunately, we cannot achieve these goals without massive amounts of energy from fossil fuels ever contributing to climate change and global warming.

I was born and raised in northern Minnesota. My family moved to Duluth in 1967. Growing up in Duluth provided the perfect opportunity to experience all the beauty and splendor that mother nature could offer in the vast wilderness of Minnesota and Ontario, Canada. Minnesota is also known for its vast and rich deposits of minerals with iron being some of the largest, most concentrated, and easily extracted deposits in the world. This vast resource was extracted extensively starting in the late 1900s and is the main reason for the financial success of the US Steel corporation. It created a source of good jobs and steady income for many Minnesotans as well. It also gave me the opportunity for me to see firsthand the true devastation that mining can ravage that same pristine environment. While in Duluth, I lived through the establishment of the EPA in1970, the rewriting of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, and the first major test of that very law against one of the biggest polluters in the United States at that time, Reserve Mining located in Silver Bay, MN. The experience of witnessing the unabated 25-year dumping of iron ore tailings into Lake Superior by Reserve Mining and, the subsequent environmental devastation caused by the extensive pollution including asbestos contamination of the largest freshwater lake in the world had a profound effect on me. Even when faced with a Federal Judge’s order to stop dumping the taconite tailings into Lake Superior, the equivalent of two full railcars per second for 25 years, the company’s CEO refused. Reserve Mining subsequently was able to continue dumping taconite tailings into Lake Superior until 1980 through various legal actions and appeals.

Today all the parties guilty of creating the environmental damage are gone along with the good-paying jobs. And the environmental devastation remains with no prospect of a cleanup. In fact, a cleanup of the vast site is not possible. This case, the United States vs. Reserve Mining, was an unequivocal environmental failure, a failure by the Environmental Protection Agency, the very organization established and charged with protecting the very ecosystem and watershed that was devastated. And this was iron sulfite mining as compared to precious and semi-precious mining which can have far greater damage to the environment due to the toxic refining processes. There are examples of similar pollution caused by hundreds even thousands of mines both active as well as abandoned across the county and across the world. None of the so-called “green energy benefits” of copper sulfite mining will ever replace the sheer magnitude of pollution and devastation these mines will inflict on areas such as the Rainy River Watershed and the Lake Superior Watershed. The economic value of three tons of copper refined from approximately three hundred tons of copper ore, the amount required to build one single wind turbine, cannot replace the loss of even one species of plant or animal or even one square inch of this pristine land. The acid runoff alone from the refining process will forever devastate the environment. None of the proposed containment measures will keep the acid from leaking and leaching into the environment and destroying it. Polymet Mining currently has a permit to build a 252-foot upstream earthen dam, the largest in Minnesota mining history, to hold back tons of toxic, polluted mine tailings waste for all of eternity. Not possible. The following are examples of environmental damage caused by catastrophic dam failures at mine sites worldwide such as in Brazil at the recent Brumadinho mining disaster in 2019, releasing fifteen million cubic yards of tailings. Or the Mike Horse mine dam failure in Montana in 1975 releasing an estimated two hundred thousand cubic yards. Or the 2014 Mount Polley Mine failure in Canada releasing thirty million cubic yards of tailings. Or the Samarco tailings dam failure in 2015 releasing eighty million cubic yards. Air and noise pollution will also be devastating. The immediate sheer impact of both on the environment generated by the Twin Metals mining operation every hour of every day 365 days a year will have even more of a negative impact on the surrounding environment including animals, fish, and birds. The extraction of metal ores at the demise of the environment will not have any serious impact in solving the global climate crisis regardless of what the supporters claim. This is not possible without a serious simultaneous coordinated reduction and ultimate phase-out of fossil fuels. And since COP26 failed to accomplish this essentially because G20 failed to accomplish this, both conferences held in 2021, there is no hope of a fossil fuel phase-out happening soon or if ever. And none of the existing federal laws will have any benefit of protecting this beautiful area, an area including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Voyageurs National Park, Superior National Forest, and Quetico Provincial Park, as claimed by those in favor of mining. We see this lack of federal environmental protection in the failure of the first major case brought by the EPA, United States vs. Reserve Mining, over 40 years ago.

I have very fond memories of this pristine area located in northern Minnesota. I spent the first 22 years of my life camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, skiing, skating, and enjoying all the wonderful outdoor activities Minnesota and Ontario had to offer. Unspoiled lakes, rivers, and streams so clean you could simply dip your cup, the one laying in the bottom of the canoe, into the water and drink clean, fresh water. This is an experience few people will ever know including my 1-year-old granddaughter. These beautiful waterways surrounded by lush green forests and wetlands are like no other in North America. Growing up, Boundary Waters Canoe Area (Wilderness) was one of our favorite places for the opening of the Walleye season in Minnesota. I will also always treasure the beauty of the majestic white pine and hardwood forests comprising the Superior National Forest and the surrounding area. I have also spent a great deal of time north of the border in Quetico Provincial Park again enjoying the beauty and splendor of the Canadian wilderness.

I am in favor of withdrawing from the mining application process in Minnesota. There should also be an immediate, mandatory release of the commissioned Federal Government environmental review of the area relative to mining pollution. This review is currently being withheld from the public. The information in this report belongs to the people of the United States and, especially to the people of Minnesota. If history has taught us anything, it is that mining is ALWAYS devastating to the environment, a devastation that lasts for hundreds or even thousands of years. Polymet Mining’s own environmental impact study claimed their contamination would last at least five hundred years or even longer. It is not possible to mine safely, and we do not need yet another example of that kind of environmental devastation here in Minnesota. We need this legislation. We need to withdraw from this application immediately followed by the establishment of a 20-year mining moratorium followed by yet another moratorium banning mining in Minnesota forever. These actions will help preserve this pristine, beautiful wilderness for all future generations.