Plans for mine filed days after environmental review blocked
A mining company released plans to build a copper mine in Minnesota’s pristine Superior National Forest, days after the White House intervened to block Congress from mandating an environmental impact report on the project, a lawmaker said.
The move by Antofagasta Plc. subsidiary Twin Metals Minnesota LLC to file a formal mining plan with federal regulators kicks off a review process for the project, which in addition to copper would mine metals such as nickel and cobalt near the Boundary Waters, an immense 1.1 million-acre tract of federally protected lakes and forests near the Canadian border.
It comes days after the White House demanded the removal of a congressional requirement mandating the completion of an environmental study on the sulfide- ore mining project from government funding legislation, said Minnesota Democratic Representative Betty McCollum.
“The fix is in,” said McCollum, who added that the company’s plan would “extract profits while poisoning Minnesota’s most pristine waters.”
The White House declined to comment. Kathy Graul, a Twin Metals spokeswoman, said the company was putting forward a “world- class, 21stcentury” mining project, while noting it would be located in an area of Superior National Forest where activities like mining and logging “are considered desired conditions under the Superior National Forest Plan.”
“Minnesota is home to some of the most stringent environmental standards in the world,” she said in an email. “We will have to prove at both the state and federal levels that we will meet or exceed standards in place, or our project will not be authorized to move forward.”
The underground mine proposed near the city of Ely on the Rainy River Watershed has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists who fear the project will pollute some of the cleanest water in the world.
President Barack Obama, in the waning days of his administration, moved to take hundreds of thousands of acres in the Superior National Forest in far northern Minnesota off the table for mining exploration while a study was conducted on the environmental impact.