PolyMet Mining Corp. said Monday that the revised environmental report for its proposed copper mine and processing center near Hoyt Lakes is complete and headed to state, federal and tribal agencies for review.
The “draft, supplemental Environmental Impact Statement,” a detailed plan for how the mine will operate in compliance with state and federal regulations, was compiled by independent contractor EMR and has been years in the making.
The EIS now will be reviewed by the lead regulatory agencies involved — the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service — as well as cooperating agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Bois Forte, Fond du Lac and Grand Portage tribal governments.
Once those agencies have had a chance to review and comment, the EIS will be published and made available for public review, probably later this summer.
“This is a very important step toward completion of the environmental review and issuance of the permits we need to build and operate the NorthMet Project,” Jon Cherry, PolyMet’s president and CEO, said in a statement Monday.
LaTisha Gietzen, PolyMet vice president of public and environment affairs, said the company hopes lead agencies will deem the revised environmental
review adequate and publish a final EIS early in 2014, with permits to begin mining issued shortly thereafter and construction on the facility starting in the second half of 2014.
In the works for more than a decade, the PolyMet project has been reworked in recent years to meet concerns of regulatory agencies and others about the long-term implications of emissions, especially potentially acidic runoff when the copper-bearing rock is exposed to water and air.
The revised EIS contains several changes from the original mining project report, released in 2010, which was panned by environmental and tribal groups as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, PolyMet has announced successful testing of a water treatment system it says will prevent that pollution.
“The agencies and their EIS contractor have been engaged in very detailed review of the project design, which includes several project modifications in response to public and regulatory comments,” Cherry said in his statement. “The project modifications and improvements, such as the addition of a reverse osmosis water treatment plant, demonstrate our commitment to construct and operate NorthMet in a way that protects the environment.”
PolyMet is proposing Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine, a $600 million open-pit mine near Babbitt and a processing center at the old LTV taconite mine north of Hoyt Lakes. The project would create about 350 jobs for more than 20 years, plus extensive spinoff business. PolyMet also would recover gold, platinum, palladium and other valuable metals.