Painting by Adam Swanson, www.adamswanson.com
Mary Blitzer
Clean water is becoming ever more precious in a hotter, drier world. Because Lake Superior holds 10% of all the freshwater on the planet, Minnesotans have a great responsibility to preserve this life-giving resource, today and for future generations.
We must not be rushed into new toxic sulfide mining projects by multinational corporations with track records of environmental devastation.
Multinational companies are proposing sulfide ore mines in the Lake Superior, Boundary Waters, and Mississippi River headwaters watersheds. But sulfide ore mining cannot be done safely in Minnesota. Tailings eventually leach into the ground, polluting lakes, rivers, and drinking water in perpetuity. For example, the environmental impact statement for PolyMet’s proposed mine in northern Minnesota found that after 20 years of operation, water from the site would require 500 years of active treatment. Do you know any multinational companies you would trust with such a responsibility?
To protect our precious resources regulators must live up to their missions. Their recent failures to regulate Enbridge and keep our water safe during and after the Line 3 construction are a major cause for concern.
But the Sierra Club will keep fighting to hold them accountable, through the legal system and via federal and state action.
- Governor Walz, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency must change course and begin full enforcement of existing laws, which already provide the tools to reject all sulfide mining proposals.
- The state of Minnesota must fully investigate PolyMet’s dangerous proposal for storing mining waste.
- Federal agencies should ban sulfide mining in the Boundary Waters, cancel the Twin Metals’ mineral leases, and reject PolyMet’s water permit application.
- At the state level, we need Prove It First legislation. This would require mining companies to provide examples of a sulfide mine that has operated safely in a water rich environment for at least ten years and closed for ten years without releasing toxic pollution, before we build one in Minnesota.
Together we have the power to pressure our agencies and elected officials from the governor on down to stand up for us and for our water. Join us in calls to action throughout the coming year.
Mary Blitzer is the Senior Engagement Manager of the North Star Chapter. If not with her family, then her favorite place to be is in one of our wonderful, precious, COLD, freshwater lakes.