That Damn Mine

 “Dead Mine Walking”by Rob Levine (June, 2025 Duluth Reader)

Give it to the Minnesota alternative press for this extensive, in-depth article on the proposed sulfide mine planned in the St. Louis River watershed that flows into Lake Superior.  The mine is variously called PolyMet and now NorthMet.  Levine, a former Minnesota Star-Tribune journalist, has done what his former paper will not do.  He’s detailed a travesty that has gained support from the upper-ranks of the Democratic Party in Minnesota (DFL) and their handmaidens in the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).  The Republican Party is also fully on board, as would be expected.  Both pretend a sulfide copper-nickel mine is the same as an iron ore mine.  It is not.

Water-saturated areas around the proposed site

It’s a long, twisted tale of legal decisions, technical and geologic investigations, political pressure, regulatory laxity and potential profiteering by a Swiss/Canadian mining company, NewRange Copper Nickel (NCN), a joint operation owned by Swiss Glencore and Canadian Tech Resources.  It is also a political football on the national stage between Obama, Trump and Biden, along with the Twin Metals mine proposed just upstream from the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in Minnesota.  In that mine Twin Metal’s tailings waste will flow north into the BWCA and Canada.  In fact, if Polymet is built, it will be easier for Twin Metals to be approved.

Here are the damning facts about Polymet as laid out by Levine: 

The Dam Proposal

A catastrophic mine tailings dam failure similar to the one proposed by NCN has happened already in Mount Polley, Canada in 2014; in Mariana, Brazil in 2015 and Brumadinho, Brazil in 2019. The content of the toxic soup behind the dam are sulfur, mercury, arsenic, copper, nickel and manganese that would be dumped into the watershed. Sulfuric acid is another byproduct, as tailings meet oxygen.  The ore to be mined has a low-grade copper/nickel content of .3%, while 99.7% is ‘waste’ rock, so this mine smells of capitalist desperation. In 2009 the Federal EPA rejected NCN’s ‘upstream dam’ plan, which was their idea to prevent this chemical soup from leaking. A 2012 leaked memo from a DNR employee said “…the proposed method … significantly increases the potential for a dam failure….”  “the dam must function properly for an extended period of time … perhaps 900 years…”

A proposed ‘upstream dam’ made of steps of rock tailings is weakened by both wetness, inconsistent bedrock and seismic activity.  Polymet didn’t test drill deep enough to actually know what kind of bedrock is below or around the proposed tailings basin pond, including the bedrock that their bottom ‘cut off wall’ will be attached to.  This wall is designed to prevent leakage downstream.  They are guessing, ignoring ‘well-known techniques’ that could have been used according to geologist JD Lehr. An analysis of their drill records by Lehr showed a high level of ‘artesian’ water activity flowing around the proposed pond, as well as highly variable bedrock, even at the ‘cut off’ wall. According to studies, 20% of these dams have stability issues, which is scientific verbiage for dangerous instability.  This one certainly is, given the present geologic and hydrologic conditions, along with the plan itself. 

DNR/MPCA/Polymet Collaboration

In 2018 the Minnesota DNR approved a dam safety permit for this project and the MPCA approved a permit to allow pollutant discharge.  In 2019 the Army Corps of Engineers approved a permit to destroy wetlands.   In 2020 an Appeals Court overturned the permits.  The DNR and Polymet jointly appealed the decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court.  In part of their legal argument the DNR argued that no one outside of the immediate dam area had standing, which included the downstream Fond du Lac Tribe and various Minnesota environmental groups who were parties to the suit.  This logic was rejected by the court. 

The DNR also argued that there was no definite ‘term’ to this contract or remediation.  I.E. they proposed a ‘forever’ toxic pond. This was admitted to by a Polymet spokesperson on Minnesota Public Radio in 2014.  The MN Supreme Court rejected a ‘forever’ definition of the word ‘term.’  Prior to this, Polymet claimed the term was 100-200 years, but in later filings any termination date disappeared.  Still, the MN Supreme Court granted 8 of Polymet’s 11 arguments, then sent the case back to an administrative judge for the rest.  Minnesota tax monies allocated to the DNR for the law processes to enable Polymet?  Between $2.9-$4.4M.  

SEEPAGE

To prevent seepage, the proposal is to pump water back to the top of the dam at 300 million gallons a year.  Then bentonite clay is to be dropped into the tailings pond by a boat to ‘cap’ the seepage.  The DNR’s own experts and consultants had said the plan to avoid seepage by using bentonite was ‘wishful thinking.’ Levine himself calls bentonite ‘magical’ in its ability to create a supposedly waterproof barrier.  The single case study the DNR used to prove their case was not published in the legal filings. 

While saying favorable things about the proposal, the administrative judge rejected the use of bentonite based on present Minnesota environmental law.  (Levine mentions that Minnesota laws are behind the times and have not been updated for this kind of mining.)  Even Polymet admitted that 160 million gallons per year (mgpy) will seep from the pond; 73 mgpy through the beaches; 65 mpgy will seep through the dams – for a total of 298 million gallons per year. “Waterproof?” 

POLITICS

The political circus around these mining projects reflect a 15 year process by DFL governors Dayton and Walz that aims to OK the mines for political reasons - to stymie Republicans in northern Minnesota. Both governors have appointed the MPCA and DNR commissioners who have backed Polymet.  So the environment is to be sacrificed for centrist political expediency.  According to Levine, a minority in the DFL, 75 out of 201, backs a “Prove It First” (PIF) bill in the Minnesota legislature which would put a 20 year moratorium on sulfide mines in northeastern Minnesota. This PIF bill has never been allowed a legislative hearing in 10 years, a blocking effort effected by both Parties.

Levine concludes his long article:  “…current efforts to mine low grade ore on the cheap in environmentally sensitive areas, and skirt or ignore the state’s paltry sulfide mining laws haven’t panned out, even as the state’s executives, legislative branch and courts have bent over backwards to make it happen.”  

It is clear that ‘environmentalism’ is a just a slogan for the state DFL leadership based on this story.  The DFL here leans right in their attempt to fight Republicans, just as the national Party does.  This even when their leftish voting base in the state overwhelmingly opposes these useless and dangerous mines, which when built, will employ few.  This is why Minnesota – and by extension the U.S. – needs a new Left political party, based on a revived labor movement cognizant of environmental issues, along with the cohesion of every Left, political and activist community group into one unstoppable force.  The key is organization, a united workers’ front.

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms:  “Polymet,” “Twin Metals,” “Line 3,” ‘environment,’ ‘water pollution,’ “Democrats,” “DFL.”

May Day Books has a good collection of Left newspapers, magazines and journals for sale, but not the Duluth Reader.  It is free in the Duluth area. 

Red Frog / July 20, 2025