Sue Schurke looks at the economy differently than most of her neighbors. Her house overlooks a lake that sits downstream from the proposed Twin Metals nickel and copper mine. Schurke and her husband Paul have benefitted from the natural richness of the area. She employs nine people that design and manufacture outerwear. The couple has also operated a dogsled lodge since the 1980s where they own a pack of 60 friendly but hyperactive Inuit sled dogs brought in from northern Canada.

“Ely is not a dying town,” she said, countering the argument that the tourism economy can’t sustain the town. “I have a manufacturing business and there’s room for lots of good businesses in this town that are sustainable.”

Ely sits at the gateway of the million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a wilderness of lakes and forest that stretches to the Canadian border. The last iron-ore operation in the town, the underground Pioneer Mine, closed in 1967. In succeeding decades, the population has become a hybrid of people who still work at mines in nearby towns and those who have migrated to the area to take advantage of the outdoor recreation economy.

Paul Schurke said pro-mining advocates in town are being “hoodwinked.”

“If they score the permits, they'll sit on them until the market improves and until expensive mining manpower has been replaced by robotics,” he said. “I empathize with the locals clamoring for high-paying mining jobs, but it's sad to see them being exploited by foreign plutocrats and Trump's populist movement.”

In an ironic twist, the Schurkes were invited to the White House in 2018 for the administration’s annual “Made in America” product showcase, where her colorful parkas and jackets caught the eye of Melania Trump.

Sue says she has nothing against the iron ore industry that has been here for more than 100 years. Many of her employees come from mining families that support the nickel-copper project. But she fears the impact the new mine might have on her family’s businesses and the environment.

“I just feel like Trump came along and just basically opened the door for people,” she said. “Mining is their history … they went with Trump because he was opening the door for it.”

It’s difficult to describe this pristine wilderness area. Vast beyond imagining and mostly totally wild. The Great Lakes are a great treasure; not just the fresh water and creatures of the Lakes themselves, the entire biosphere around the lakes is boggling in its beauty and provision. We MUST protect and tend this place. 

The Boundary Waters itself is humongous!

Dude I still got about 18 inches of snowpack and 6 ft. drifts in my backyard. It’s gone down a lot though; and, here today and for the next several, it’s gonna be above freezing for the first time in a long time. Cabin fever is a bitch. 
:~)

 "Even some who like Trump’s mining policies chafe at his harsh rhetoric."


We have existed in a bubble where our leaders were required to talk a certain way even if they were ineffective. That equation has been altered, however briefly, by Donald Trump. Minnesota will have a fateful decision to make.

The area is one of the most beautiful and pristine in the US. 

Of course, our resident experts on NT will give their opinion having no actual knowledge of the area and or iron ore mining that has taken place over the last century.  

The debate here at home is fierce. Minnesotans want this wilderness protected; it is existential in its importance. If we lose the natural integrity of this area, it would be dooming. 

Minnesotans want this wilderness protected

Then it will be a very simple decision come election day.

If you read the article then you see why it is not that simple. 
There are generations of mining families and communities that have been on a rollercoaster, and they are desperate. Who can blame them? Many of those same folks also truly appreciate the importance of maintaining the area, and very well don’t merely understand the juxtaposition, they live it. 

The Boundary Waters and the Kawishiwi River are threatened by a massive sulfide-ore copper mine proposed by foreign-owned Twin Metals/Antofagasta. 

Another foreign-owned company hoping to cash in. Sounds exactly like the copper mine proposed in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona.

If you read the article then you see why it is not that simple. 

I have read it, but you just told us that "Minnesotans want this wilderness protected". 

Now you say: 
"There are generations of mining families and communities that have been on a rollercoaster, and they are desperate. Who can blame them?"

So the mining families are not "Minnesotans?"

You have to admit that there is no right or wrong here. People are going to vote for what they think is most important. Environment or economy - the voters get to decide!

This is exactly the issue Kavika. No matter assurances of care and promised technological advances , that are meant to encourage, the truth is a different matter. 
There are lessons about what happens in catastrophic failures. 

When dams fail: protecting Minnesotans from a catastrophic collapse

By Matt Doll – Minnesota Environmental Partnership

In the wake of the tragic collapse of a Brazilian mining waste dam that killed more than 100 people and displaced thousands more, observers around the world have asked, “Could it happen here?” While it is evident that lax enforcement and managerial malfeasance contributed greatly to this disaster, it is entirely possible that a similarly large flood of mine waste could strike in Minnesota.

The PolyMet mine dam proposal – which was recently permitted by The Department of Natural Resources –  uses the same kind of tailings waste dam construction as the Vale mine that failed this week.  Though already permitted, the Department of Natural Resources has the ability to revisit that decision in light of this disaster to make sure Minnesotans are protected.

The hazards when flooding mixes with mines

The deadliest mining disaster in Minnesota’s history to date was the Milford Mine flood in 1924, in which a cave-in at a manganese mine caused the waters of Foley Lake to rush into the 200-foot-deep pit, killing 41 workers. This tragedy shocked Minnesota, but it wasn’t completely unanticipated – according to a survivor , the company mining engineer warned management repeatedly that the mine’s proximity to the lake was unsafe. Fortunately, the flood – and the manganese ore, which can cause neurological diseases if present in drinking water – was relatively contained within the mine.

The proposed PolyMet mine is a different story. While mining today tends to enjoy the benefits of safer technology, PolyMet carries its own spill risk. The current proposal calls for the mine tailings waste, which includes compounds that release high levels of toxic acid into water, to be kept behind a 40-year-old earthen upstream dam , similar in construction to the failed dam in Brazil. This type of dam is obsolete technology, with three catastrophic failures in just the last 5 years . The dry stacking of mine tailings is a far safer waste storage method, but would require more work and investment from PolyMet, which has refused to seriously consider using it.

The dam would need to be maintained indefinitely (read: hundreds of years) but that’s no guarantee it would hold forever against floods and erosion. One engineer hired to evaluate the project said that “a lake on top of a pile of sand is inherently unstable, and irresponsible.”

A strong enough flood (an increasing risk as climate change boosts rainfall in Minnesota) would cause the dam to fail, spilling toxic waste not only into a mine shaft, but into the St. Louis River watershed, which feeds into Lake Superior and on which thousands of people rely. This would not be an outlier in the history of sulfide ore mines in the United States – no such mine has ever operated in this country without polluting the surrounding water and habitat.

Seeking to stave off catastrophic consequences

Minnesotans are determined that a disaster on the scale of the tragedy in Brazil should not be replicated in our state. On January 31 ^st , the Fond du Lac band of Lake Superior Chippewa and several of MEP’s partnering organizations called on the DNR to revisit the permits for the dam construction in light of this catastrophe.

Said Kathryn Hoffman of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA): “The disaster in Brazil has shown that PolyMet’s plan to store sulfide mine waste tailings behind an unsafe dam begun in the 1950s is a risk that Minnesota can’t bear.” MCEA and several other MEP member organizations are also continuing with a lawsuit to block PolyMet’s land exchange with the federal government on the grounds that it shortchanges the public interest.

We urge concerned Minnesotans to share their views as well. By asking Governor Walz and DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen to reconsider the dam permit, we can help protect Minnesota from a dam we can’t afford and a catastrophe we hope never to face.

So they get to vote on whether or not to destroy some national lands...

Preserving “our way of life” has become a rallying cry in the region. Rep. Pete Stauber, a former Duluth police officer who once played professional hockey, flipped the area’s eighth congressional district to red in the 2018 midterm. He used the phrase in his campaign.

Stauber is “not running a political campaign, he’s running a cultural campaign and it’s invincible as far as I’m concerned,” said Aaron Brown, a fifth generation Iron Ranger who teaches at Hibbing Community College and writes commentary on local issues.

It all comes down to a cultural balance that remains undecided and “almost a sense of inferiority that comes from an up and down economy,” he said.

“Presidents have come and gone. Clinton and Bush and Obama and now Trump,” said Brown. “Very different policies but this place hasn’t changed that much, and I think there’s something about the hollowing out of the industrialization of this area that we feel that we no longer have any control over our self-destiny and I think that just feeds into our politics.”

The same downturns in open pit mining and the U.S. steel industry that are fueling the support for nickel and copper mining have provoked skepticism in some other Iron Range residents – those who have started to think about the area’s natural beauty as a resource that can be monetized. And natural beauty, unlike mineral deposits, never gets tapped out.

——————

Environmentalists insist otherwise. They say the nickel-copper mining process, no matter how technologically advanced, will risk leaching sulfuric acid, heavy metals and sulfates into the surrounding watershed. A statewide poll released last month showed that a majority of Minnesotans opposed the project near Ely.

“Our communities have built our way of life around the wilderness. This poll makes clear that the majority of Minnesotans stand with us in protecting our nation’s greatest canoe country wilderness,” said Becky Rom, national chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters.

These are all folks from mining communities in Minnesota. These statements affirm this.

Did you not pick that up in the article?

As far as voting, like many other things in life, we forget, is not black or white. There are alternatives to thinking about preserving communities and ways of life, than the same way we have in the past. Protecting and maintaining the land that provides that way of life must take center stage for that to happen. 

Ender, you have just claimed moral supremacy over the miners. I have to disagree.

Their opinions and morals are just as valid as your's.

Vic, in all due respect, there is always a right or wrong.

I guess we disagree on that. The argument about feeding one's family or protecting a key national industry is just as valid as environmental concerns. The old globalist mantra of telling Americans to go do something else is over!

These are all folks from mining communities in Minnesota. These statements affirm this. Did you not pick that up in the article?

You can't have it both ways. You keep going back to what you perceive that Minnesotans believe and as I keep saying - if that is true - it will be a simple vote. If not we have a very tough decision for the voters of Minnesota.

Where the hell do you come up with that? Are there not federal lands in the area?

Last I heard federal lands means our lands, the nations.

I don't think it should come down to a decision decided by 3,400 people or a few miners.

If they want it to happen then they will be stuck with the consequences.

After 20 years when the mines shut down and the land is destroyed, then what?

I don't think it should come down to a decision decided by 3,400 people or a few miners.

The vast majority of Minnesotans are not miners. They can easily out vote them should they agree with you. It is their right to vote on the issue.

The argument about feeding one's family or protecting a key national industry is just as valid as environmental concerns

What key national industry? Copper mining isn't a key national industry especially the company wanting to do the copper mining is a foreign-owned mining operation. Just like the one in the Tonto National Forest is a foreign-owned corporation.

What the heck are you talking about, feeding their families? The unemployment rate in Ely, MN is 3.7%. This has nothing to do with feeding ones family,.

Some people have the attitude that every place has to be exploited. Sad really.

Looking at pictures, the place is beautiful.

ely

But the project increases the risk of acidic waste contaminating the area’s lakes and streams

We all know it would happen.

Sulfide-ore copper mining is a risky type of mining that has never been done before in Minnesota. No matter the method, sulfide-ore copper mines proposed near the Boundary Waters would extract trace amounts of metals from large volumes of rock. Rock is blasted from pit walls and sorted into metal-bearing ore and waste rock. In the mine's first years, 4.1 million tons of waste rock will be stockpiled on the surface while the mine is hollowed out. The sulfide-bearing ore deemed to be economically valuable is crushed to increase surface area and then sent to a surface stockpile before entering the concentrator plant where the metals are chemically extracted. Since less than 1% of the rock contains metals of interest, n inety-nine percent of the rock mined turns out to be economically value-less and will remain in perpetuity in the tailings storage facility, waste rock storage piles and as backfill in the underground mine itself. No metal recovery method is 100% efficient, and metals and sulfides are left behind in the tailings. Tailings also contain residue from the explosives used to blast the pit wall, chemicals used to separate metals from sulfide minerals, and other ore components with little economic value.

When sulfide minerals in ore, tailings or waste rock are exposed to air and water, acid mine drainage develops. Oxidation and hydrolysis reactions turn otherwise benign minerals into toxic materials, including acid, metals (e.g., mercury, copper, nickel, lead and zinc) and sulfates (Jennings et al. 2008). Acidic conditions further catalyze these reactions, making them proceed at faster rates than would otherwise occur (Jennings et al. 2008).

The sulfide-ore copper mining industry has a disastrous track record. A peer-reviewed report prepared by Earthworks studied fourteen sulfide-ore copper mines representing 89% of current U.S. copper production. Of those fourteen mines, all had experienced some sort of pipeline spill or other accidental release. Thirteen of the fourteen (92%) had experienced water collection and treatment failures that resulted in significant impacts to water quality. The tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley Mine in British Columbia in August 2014 shows the catastrophic potential for such failures (Earthworks 2012).

savetheboundarywaters

It makes me sick the idea of using national forests and protected areas all just to make a few people wealthy while destroying the land and a promise of a few jobs.

n inety-nine percent of the rock mined turns out to be economically value-less and will remain in perpetuity in the tailings storage facility, waste rock storage piles and as backfill in the underground mine itself

And when all is said and done, the waste will always be there.

I was born and raised in the area Ender. The beauty of the area is unsurpassed in the US. Many times I have canoed up the Kawishiwi River toward Thunder Bay, Canada.

I have relatives that own and operate guide services there. They are strongly opposed to any mining in the area. Many of our family, myself included, have a lot of experience with the iron ore mining in the three major ranges in the area. The Vermillion, Mesabi and Cuyuna range. Many of their fathers, cousins and friends worked in those mines.

The largest population of Ely was in 1930 around 6100, today it is 3400. Even when the iron mines were booming the population was less than 6,000.

It makes me sick the idea of using national forests and protected areas all just to make a few people wealthy while destroying the land and a promise of a few jobs.

Unless, of course, it's a tourist attraction.

Fail to understand any point you are trying to make.

Having tourism compared to toxic waste is a no brainier.

Fail to understand any point you are trying to make. Having tourism compared to toxic waste is a no brainier.

The point is to avoid being fooled by pictures.  That's a common propaganda tactic used by environmentalists.  The outflow in the picture you provided may not even be the result of mining operations.  The outflow may be from mining operations over one hundred years ago and may not affect an area the size of a residential lot.  

Would you say Canada is lax regarding environmental protections?  Canada has extensive mining operations and is one of the largest producers of nickel.

Nickel facts - Natural Resources Canada

The Lac de Ilse mine, located north of Thunder Bay, is located in the watershed that feeds the Boundary Water region in MN.  Zoom out and see for yourself.

Lac de Ilse mine -- satellite view

Lac des Iles Mine,   Lac des Iles Area,   Thunder Bay District,   Ontario,   Canada

Some pictures are real. It is not all fake. Deny it all you want pollution occurs and these tailing storage places will be there for a long time to come.

Although it is good for the economy, the extraction of Nickel causes many environmental issues, ruins animal habitats and contaminates water. Nickel is also highly energy intensive to extract and refine the metal. In 2008 it was ranked as having the “9th highest global warming potential” due to the greenhouse gas emissions. The main pollutants let out in to the air from the nickel mining in Sudbury is sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. To give an idea of the impact of the pollution over 100 years of mining and manufacturing: "The result of years of continuous mining and expulsion of associated pollutants resulted in approximately 7,000 lakes within 17,000 square kilometers being acidified, 20,000 hectares of barren land being created in which no vegetation grows and significant erosion has occurred, and 80,000 hectares of semi-barren land." (Krista McCraken - activehistory.ca)

In the 60s, before there were any efforts to regreen the areas ruined by pollution, they were moonscapes and had no vegetation.

Link

Are you aware of how dangerous tailing ponds are? It doesn't seem that you are. 

The largest radioactive spill in the US took place in Church Rock on the Navajo reservation in AZ.

This is now a superfund site and 40 years later still hasn't been cleaned up.

Would you say Canada is lax regarding environmental protections?  Canada has extensive mining operations and is one of the largest producers of nickel.

Are you aware of the tar sand strip mining in Canada? If you were you probably wouldn't ask that question.

BTW, Canadian foreign mining operations have caused a lot of harm to countries in Latin America.

theguardian

Here is an article on US Senators calling out the Canadian government and mining companies for polluting US water

vancouversun

Ely, MN, had a population of 4,000 in 1990.  Ely's population today is a little less than 3,400.  The Boundary Water region is city folk pristine.  Very few people live there.  The Boundary Water has been mined out, logged out, burned out, and blown down.  

Here's a comparison between the 2012 election (Obama-Romney) and the 2016 election (Clinton-Trump).  Minnesota has been turning Republican over the last several elections.  Trump expanded Republican influence in Minnesota.

Where Trump did better than Mitt Romney in Minnesota, and where he did worse

In Minnesota it is the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party; not the Democratic Party.  In fact there has been growing calls for the DFL to end its affiliation with the national Democratic Party and stand alone.  The map in the linked article should explain why.

If the DFLP abandons the democratic party it will stand alone and the big money will grind them up.  The GOP which has nothing to offer anyone is playing a game of blame and no return with these people.

To the people of Minnesota and all other American areas suffering from economic opportunity the reason for all of it is Supply Side Economics.  The rich used you to get rich and SSE opened the door for them to use the World to get richer. 

Trump never intended to save you.  His only intent was to use your anger against you and solidify the power of the wealth class.

Want to fix this?  End Supply Side Economics, vote out all of SSE's proponents and get back to basic structured capitalism.  Drive a stake through SSE's heart and throw it back into the swamp from whence it came.