Supporters of copper-sulfide mining often say something like, “Let the process play out” or “We have strict environmental laws” or “Let the mine go through a full environmental review.” These are clever talking points that paint a picture of a patient, reasonable industry willing to wait for the facts to come in and committed to adhering to environmental safeguards.
Clever, but it’s a ruse.
A book could be written about how the industry has continually put its finger on the scale and the effort it has put into getting around regulations.
It’s well known that the Trump administration has done enormous favors for Antofagasta, the Chilean-owned mining company behind Twin Metals, the proposed copper-sulfide mine at the edge of the Boundary Waters. Not only did the administration resurrect expired mineral leases, effectively breathing new life into this controversial project, but it’s becoming more apparent that federal agencies have allowed Twin Metals to set the terms.
Several weeks ago, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, along with a coalition of organizations and businesses, sued the Trump administration over its illegal renewal of Twin Metals’ mineral leases.
A cornerstone of our case is that the administration violated the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) when it decided not to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the lease renewals. Instead, they completed a much shorter, much more watered-down study known as an Environmental Assessment (EA).
This might sound like confusing regulatory jargon, but it has enormous consequences.
An EIS is required for an action that would significantly affect the human environment, like an industrial copper-sulfide mine. An EA merely determines if there is a potential for significant environmental effects. This EA was particularly lax, as it did not evaluate the impacts of Twin Metals’ proposed mine, or consider ways to reduce pollution and the overall environmental impacts of the mine.
This was a rubberstamp for building a type of mine with a dismal environmental record that would bring acid mine drainage and mercury contamination to the doorstep of the pristine Boundary Waters.
[image_caption]Chris Knopf[/image_caption]
We know this because, last week, documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed that Twin Metals representatives lobbied Trump administration officials for it. In hopes of skipping an environmental review altogether, Twin Metals sought a Categorical Exclusion. Knowing such a favor was a long shot, it then said that it would like a “limited EA” instead.
Twin Metals was on a schedule and wanted the review to be done “within the next year” in order to release its Mine Plan of Operation.
Twin Metals got what it asked for.
It appears that Twin Metals was able to work with regulators, and work around the law to avoid a full EIS.
That is, Twin Metals set the scope and the calendar of the regulatory process.
The problem is deeper than just the Trump administration. In Minnesota, we have seen how cozy state regulators have been with PolyMet, the other proposed copper-sulfide mine in Minnesota that is owned by the Swiss mega-conglomerate, Glencore.
[image_caption]Louis Galdieri[/image_caption]
Both DNR and MPCA have continually fought against those who have raised concerns about the lax, industry-friendly terms in PolyMet’s permits. Even after the courts stepped in, these agencies have shown no appetite to address the problems in these permits. Instead, these state agencies are using taxpayer dollars to team up with PolyMet’s lawyers to defend their faulty permits by appealing to the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Minnesotans like to think we have the strongest environmental protections in the country, that there are safeguards in place to protect our clean water.
On both a federal and state level, there is ample evidence that agencies are treating Twin Metals and PolyMet as if they are clients. Far too often, we have seen regulators cut corners and skew the process in favor of the multibillion-dollar conglomerates that own Twin Metal and PolyMet, Antofagasta and Glencore.
It’s hard to imagine that many believe this is the proper role of our regulatory agencies. Minnesotans and Americans from across our country who enjoy our clean waters deserve and must demand better.
Chris Knopf is the executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. Louis Galdieri is a documentary filmmaker living in New York City whose FOIA requests have unearthed hundreds of documents related to Twin Metals.
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So Twin Metals lobbied for a different environmental study and they got it, that is the big story here? Is the EA study enough to get the lease renewal process started, yes or no? Friends of the Boundary Waters have been suing Polymet and Twin Metals for years. The minute Twin Metals passed the EIS study, friends of the boundary waters would sue over that study too. What shortcuts to the permitting process is Twin Metals getting away with? Please be specific.
GOOD ! Glad to know watchdogs are watching.
And as we well know, Joe Smith is someone who has advocated for private watchdogs: “Have a private watchdog group check for waste, fraud and abuse…” 12/11/19.
[overnight news from Ecuador}
The accident was caused by the collapse of a retaining wall at the Armijos tailings station, located in the Camilo Ponce Enriquez area and operated by local firm Austro Gold. The released tailings were carried by a nearby creek into the river that is the source of fresh water for some adjacent farms and communities.
https://www.mining.com/ecuador-reports-tailings-dam-breach-in-azuay-province/
Mining in sensitive environments destroys resources for the future, as we are reminded over and over.The mining company cannot fix the stream, even if they were forced to try. The farmers are no match in court to multi-nationals who walk away and leave their mess.
Minnesotans need to stand up and be the stewards of the natural waters and lands that sustain life. Glencore will not be there for us when its gone.
My recommendation: Clean up the Dunka Pit of its acid leakage before we speak of any hard rock mining anywhere in the Great Lakes Region.
Joe will call that “fake news”.
It’s quite concerning that both state and federal environmental regulators have been so thoroughly co-opted by regulatory capture. This is most especially the case when a mine failure will result in irreversible environmental damage that no company on earth could hope to rectify, even if ordered to do so. This pro-polluter stance signals that the entire theory and structure of the environmental regulatory regime put in place in the 1970s has effectively been destroyed by corporate power.
In the federal arena, we have a pendulum effect depending on whether anti-environmental “conservatives” control the WH or whether more environmentally concerned Dems control it. Now the horrendous Trump and his regulatory lackies merely overturn every Obama era decision, that’s the Trumpite “criteria”.
But the overall goal of the “conservative” movement is to have the entire theory of regulatory agencies destroyed. Now that Trump has created a democratically-illegitimate 5 man conservative majority on the Supreme Court, they will soon (in the next couple years) declare the entire regulatory state of the 20th Century unconstitutional. That will end the EPA and the entire existing regime of federal environmental law. As for the current BWCA permits, we’ll see how the (increasingly rightwing) federal courts deal with the bogus and illegal permits/leases issued to Twin Metals.
The capture of the state agencies is troubling because it means that neither party cares about the environment, and thinks that most Minnesotans don’t either. Here the blame must fall on Dem governors, who appoint the heads of DNR and MPCA. If those agencies have been captured by corporate power, then some blame falls on the Dem governors, who are too willing to placate Northern Minnesota’s desperate demand for jobs (however few) at any price whatever. It sounds like the only thing standing in the way of complete corporate control over the process at this point are the state court judges.
The citizenry is effectively either asleep at the wheel or no longer cares about the total destruction of the environment. They certainly no longer vote to protect it, as voting for the Repub Party’s total denial of climate change makes clear.
My (R) legislative rep voted AGAINST banning TCE. (It did pass)
Nobody else would even think of doing such a thing.
WHY? His version of ideology doesn’t abide government regulation.
Nobody nowadays expects to be able to walk into a store or restaurant or school and light up a cigarette.
But ask them to wear a mask and it’s crazy time in reactionary land.
The Sixth Great Extinction is underway. Biodiversity is in free-fall as we lose more and more species of plants and animals and spawn outbreaks of poisonous blue-green algae even in isolated lakes on Isle Royale.
Massive die-offs of elephants still undiagnosed.
Perma-frost melting and trees sprouting in the tundra while conifers suffer beetle infestations that make them infernos waiting to happen.
Night time clouds.
A massive oil spill inside the Arctic Circle and Siberia reaching temperatures of 100 degrees F.
And yet the easiest things we can do to simply STOP polluting and start conserving and changing over our energy systems ASAP? Politically impossible.
🙁
But the demonic Libs were defeated, Richard, and that’s all that matters….