Imbolc New Moon (Wild)
Don’t let new law slow PolyMet: Current regulations balance environmental, economic needs.
In its new get soft editorial stance The Star-Tribune glosses over the effects of sulfide mining. You might call sulfide mine operations serial rapists who use taxes and jobs as rohypnol for legislators and regulators. A news organization like the Star-Tribune should be immune, but they drank the kool-aid.
Here’s the problem. There is no instance–NO INSTANCE–where sulfide mining has failed to release toxic pollutants. These toxins range from the most common sulfuric acid to heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. Our neighbor Wisconsin has a moratorium on permits for sulfide mines, a moratorium that can be lifted only after a sulfide mine has operated for 10 years and proven itself pollution free in that time.
Northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan share certain geological similarities, among them the presence of copper and other minerals now deemed important for manufacturing. The first mine would not be the last. Far from it. There are more projects waiting in the wings for Polymet’s proposal to get the go ahead.
Mining in general is a resource frontier industry. That is, they go into an area with a natural resource, exploit it to exhaustion, then leave, often bankrupting in the individual mine to free up assets for further work in other areas. This means their insistence on the jobs they produce and the taxes they pay are no better than love’em and leave’em gifts to the lover who will, for sure, get left behind or married and abandoned with no support.
