Mining Arguments Fall Flat, One By One

The Oct. 25 meeting of the Ely Area Development Association included presentations by representatives of Polymet Mining and Twin Metals, a Duluth Metals and Antofagasta joint venture.  They gave us many logical reasons why we should mine a low grade ore body in Minnesota’s wetlands but as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, it is experience rather than logic that is the life of the law.  We have ample experience to judge mining in Minnesota so let’s use that experience to determine what laws we need to stop the damage being done to Minnesota by mining.

One of the most ridiculous claims was that we need mining so that the Ely hospital won’t have to struggle to stay functional. The EADA meeting was on Monday.  In Wednesday’s Mesabi Daily News it was reported that the Virginia hospital has been losing a million dollars a year and that this year will  probably be worse.

Virginia is almost surrounded by operating mines.  There are three operating taconite plants within a rifle shot of the hospital including Minntac, the largest taconite operation in North America.  Copper mining proponents should have the decency to tell us how many copper mines we’ll need and how close to Ely they’ll have to be to guarantee us a healthy hospital when it’s obvious that mining hasn’t blessed the Virginia hospital.

Considering copper mines close to Ely, the Twin Metals presentation didn’t include information from their preliminary documents that predicts they’ll need more than three square miles of tailings ponds less than fifteen miles from Ely.  Being there are several companies exploring in the area, officials should give us an estimate of how many square miles of tailings ponds will be constructed in wetlands of the Superior National Forest.  I have heard mining representatives claim that they have a five billion ton ore body.  Being it’s less than one percent copper, we’re reasonable in requesting to know where the ninety-nine percent waste is going to go.

We were also told that a large part of the Twin Metals operation will be owned by a corporation from Chile.  We were all thrilled when the miners in Chile were rescued but what was not widely publicized was that many of those miners went home to communities without sewers or running water.  Copper mining proponents should explain why a corporation from Chile  is going to have any more respect for our communities than they have for their own.

It might be helpful to use another measure of quality of life to assess the impact of mining on local communities.  We know that the Ely library has been struggling to stay open on Saturdays.  The Virginia library, surrounded by mines, gave up Saturday operations long ago.

It’s disappointing to hear fellow steelworkers talk about doing it clean here so it’s not done dirty someplace else.  They ignore the leaking tailings ponds, blighted waste piles, regional haze, and mesothelioma deaths of their fellow miners.  They also seem to forget our fellow miners who lost half of their pensions and all of their health care because bankruptcy courts care more about creditors than employees.  We won’t restore our unions by endorsing voodoo economics and junk science. I still remember the fierce independence of miners from my younger days in the taconite industry but it appears that a tough economy has changed too many steelworkers into mining company lapdogs.

If you want to use experience as your guide, google the Resource Curse.  That’s the economic theory that a community that tries to build up its economy by selling off nonrenewable resources usually ends up with a lousy economy.  The Mesabi Iron Range could be a poster child for the Resource Curse.  The hundred mile long Range has at least 24 communities and six operating taconite plants.  If mining created healthy communities, we should have one by now.

It’s pretty obvious that modern mining corporations are scavenger industries who have perfected their techniques of stripping assets and leaving behind cleanup liabilities and unfunded pensions.  Until our legislators are willing to pass adequate financial assurance and “prove it first” legislation, we are left with the option of vigorously opposing the permitting of any new mining operations.

The coal mining industry is destroying West Virginia from the top down as it goes after dirty coal by mountain topping.  The copper mining industry will destroy Minnesota from the bottom up as it degrades our ground water and surface water by mining in our lakes, rivers, and wetlands.

This post was written by

Bob Tammen – who has written 1 posts on Headwaters - Community Journalism for the Great Lakes.

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