3100 Hartley Point Road
Ely, Minnesota 55731
USA
August 16, 2014
Kelli Saunders
Secretary, LOWBWQ Study Team
International Watershed Coordinator
47 Donbrock Drive, Kenora, ON Canada
P9N 0A2
Re: International Lake of the Woods Basin Water Quality Plan of Study
Dear Ms. Saunders:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the WQPOS. As a member of the IRLWWB Community
Advisory Group, I compliment the Team on its work. Preparing the WQPOS is obviously a major
undertaking, and in my view the Team has created an important and useful plan document. I offer the
following thoughts with respect to PART 3.4 (p. 72): SURFACE AND GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION,
INCLUDING HEAVY METALS AND OTHER CONTAMINANTS:
--Please note that the WQPOS at page 80 does not mention copper. In fact, copper is the major target
of sulfide-ore mining proposals in Minnesota—nickel and so-called platinum group metals are far less
significant.
--Will minutes, summaries, reports, proceedings, etc., be prepared with respect to the Annual Mining
Effects Science Workshop (Project 28, page 79)? If so, please see the issues raised below. (If not, is the
Workshop of value, if it amounts to the various parties simply presenting science supporting their
respective positions?)
--I fear that the admonition against advocacy is unrealistic and problematic. The proposed “key
linkages” include mining companies, mining industry groups, and state permitting agencies that
have shown a bias in favor of the mining industry (for example, the Minnesota Department of
Natural Resources Lands and Minerals Division is charged with promoting mining, and the
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency routinely excuses mining company failure to comply with
clean water regulations). Another “key linkage,” academic institutions, is also of concern
because of significant financial contributions made to such institutions by the mining industry.
For example, geology programs at the Natural Resources Research Institute at the University of
Minnesota-Duluth have received major funding from companies that seek to develop copper
mines in Minnesota; some NRRI instructors have deep mining company connections and are
major advocates for copper mining.
-- Materials presented by mining companies, industry groups, government agencies charged
with promoting mining or politically beholden to mining proponents, and universities receiving
support from the mining industry will present information favorable to mining that downplays
risk and gives assurances of foolproof environmental measures. Accordingly, the work of the
Mining Effects Science Panel Workshop should be reviewed by independent scientists outside
the region if the work is to be presented to policy makers.
--The WQPOS uses the word “balance” to describe an approach to “water quality management”
(page 1) and to describe the work of the “Annual Mining Effects Science Workshop” (page 79).
The word may appear elsewhere as well. The concept of “balance” is perilous. Accuracy and
effectiveness are far more important than balance. All interested organizations and persons
should have an opportunity to provide information, but the Team should avoid the trap of
assigning equal value to all information presented. Not all “science” is of equal merit;
experience and judgment must be used to consider the quality and completeness of the work,
and the underlying motivation of the presenter.
--At pages 74-75, the WQPOS does not seem to acknowledge the role of sulfates from mining pollution
in the methylation of mercury. There is substantial discussion of several variables relating to mercury
pollution, including a reduction in sulfates from acid rain pollutants, and the role of sulfates in harming
or destroying wild rice is mentioned in passing, but I see no reference to the connection between
sulfates from mining pollution and the methylation of mercury—which link is well-established. Any
report on contaminants in the Basin should consider this issue.
-- At various points, with respect to mining the WQPOS refers to monitoring; safeguards; and treatment,
mitigation, and reclamation technology. It is important that the Team avoid the implication that mining
is an acceptable activity as long as monitoring, safeguards, and the rest meet some as-yet-undetermined
standard. The Team and any work-product forwarded to policy-makers should acknowledge the
possibility that sulfide-ore mining, even if performed to the highest standards in all respects, is an
inherently dangerous activity that should not be allowed in the Basin. Prevention is vastly superior to
attempts to mitigate and remediate.
--Members of the Community Advisory Group have recommended to the IRLWWB that the IJC send a
letter requesting that the United States Forest Service and the United States Bureau of Land
Management undertake a programmatic environmental impact statement on proposed sulfide-ore
copper-nickel mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the Superior
National Forest. The language for the request that CAG members recommended to the IRLWWB reads
as follows:
We request that the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the United States Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) prepare a comprehensive environmental impact statement (“EIS”) concerning
potential hardrock mining of copper and other metals from sulfide-bearing ores in watersheds flowing
into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the Superior National Forest and eventually into
the border waters between the United States and Canada. The EIS should take a programmatic
approach to assessing the potential impacts of such mining generally in those watersheds. The EIS
should consider both the impacts of currently anticipated mining activities and the potential impacts if
all currently-identified deposits were to be mined. Importantly, the EIS should include as an alternative
the withdrawal of federal minerals from leasing and development within Boundary Waters
watersheds. Because the exposure of sulfide-bearing ores to air and water results in acid-mine
drainage and the release of heavy metals and sulfates into surface waters and groundwater, such
mining in the water-rich environment of the Superior National Forest may have major negative
impacts on water quality in the Rainy-Lake of the Woods watershed .
The time for this review is now. A programmatic EIS is often prepared before specific locations for
mining activity have been identified. In this case, the need for a programmatic EIS is even more
urgent: the location of some potential mines is well-defined, and preliminary plans are already
available for at least one of these mines, which is proposed by Twin Metals Minnesota along the South
Kawishiwi River. Twin Metals is only one of a number of mining operators with massive mining
projects under consideration. The USFS and the BLM are being asked to renew leases, issue new
leases, grant permits for hundreds of wells to test the hydrogeology of the region, and grant
permission for many other kinds of activities preparatory for mining. Before both the agencies and the
mining companies incur the additional expense of these activities, and before the Superior National
Forest is further disrupted by them, the agencies should prepare a programmatic EIS to determine the
impact that sulfide-ore mining would have on Boundary Waters watersheds.
The PEIS would add to the base of knowledge with respect to threats to the ecosystem health of the
Basin, and thus falls within the IJC’s instructions to the Team. For that reason and the following reasons,
among others, I recommend that the WQPOS request that the IJC send letters to the Forest Service and
the Bureau of Land Management requesting a programmatic EIS.
--Copper-nickel mining in sulfide ores is proposed along and under the South Kawishiwi River
and Birch Lake, and in other areas within the Superior National Forest in the watershed of the
Rainy River. At least nine different projects are in various stages of exploration and other work
preliminary to mining.
--The record of pollution by acid mine drainage, heavy metals, and sulfates from such mining is
well-established in North America and elsewhere.
--Tailings basins failures and other mining-related accidents are inevitable—recent examples
include the Mount Polley Mine tailings dam breach in British Columbia and the Buenavista Mine
acidic water spill in Sonora, Mexico (both within the past couple of weeks), and the mining
chemical storage tank leak into the Elk River in West Virginia (January 2014).
--Time is of the essence. Mining company activity is already having an impact within the Rainy
Headwaters. Exploratory drilling activity, including the clearing of forested drill sites and
associated road-building, has impacted groundwater and the terrestrial landscape that sustains
groundwater. Further, withdrawal of surface waters for use in drilling impacts aquatic
ecosystems.
--Because mining proposals in the Basin in Canada also threaten water quality, I suggest that the Team
ask the responsible Canadian national and provincial government entities to conduct environmental
review equivalent to a programmatic EIS with respect to those proposals.
I offer the following general comments:
--Major mining projects require vast amounts of electricity. The WQPOS should consider the impact on
aquatic ecosystems if additional power plants are built in the region.
--It is important that the WQPOS consider not only existing or planned projects or activities in the Basin
that may harm water quality, but also projects or activities that may be foreseen to occur in the Basin in
the future. A rough example is the recent experience of the toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie that
degraded the water supply in the Toledo, Ohio area. In years past, action was taken to greatly reduce
the amount of phosphorus in the system from detergents, but no effective action was taken to
anticipate and prevent a greatly increased phosphorus load from expanded agricultural activities in the
Lake Erie watershed.
--A study of the economics of water quality would be worthwhile. For example, a rigorous examination
of the beneficial effects of forests, including mining forests, could help guide land-use decisions.
Respectfully submitted,
Reid Carron