2/10/12 WaterLegacy alerted the StarTribune to reasons for PolyMet delay and supplied a detailed brief to responsible and cooperating agencies.  We raised issues of faulty assumptions and lack of adequate data for statistical modeling in the current environmental review of the project's potential water impacts.

See WaterLegacy's PolyMet factsheet on Jobs and Clean Water.

RELEASE OF DRAFT EIS: The responsible government agencies -- United States Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) -- released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the PolyMet NorthMet Project in October 2009.

An EIS is the document that analyzes potential environmental impacts of a proposal that involved government action and evaluates alternatives and mitigation measures to protect the environment.

The full text of the Draft EIS and Attachments is available through the MDNR website.

WaterLegacy's work

ASSESSMENT OF DRAFT EIS

WaterLegacy provided more than 100 pages of detailed comments concluding that the PolyMet draft EIS was inadequate to fairly evaluate environmental impacts and that the PolyMet open pit sulfide mine and tailings basin would have unacceptable environmental impacts, including impairment of wetlands, habitats, wild rice and aquatic ecosystems; toxic pollution of drinking water, groundwater and surface water; mercury contamination of fish; air pollution; threats to endangered species; global climate change impacts and risks of catastrophic failure of dams and waste rock piles. Read WaterLegacy’s DEIS Comments.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) gave the PolyMet DEIS a rare failing grade:

"Based on our review of the DEIS, EPA has rated the DEIS as Environmentally Unsatisfactory - Inadequate, or EU-3. Environmentally Unsatisfactory (EU) indicates that our review has identified adverse environmental impacts that are of sufficient magnitude that the EPA believes the proposed action must not proceed as proposed."

Key documents

Read US EPA Comments on the PolyMet DEIS

Commentary in the Star Tribune on EPA Assessment of PolyMet by Paula Maccabee, Counsel for WaterLegacy and Nancy Schuldt, Water Projects Coordinator for the Fond du Lac Band.   PolyMet mine can't proceed as proposed

Other Agency Comments on the PolyMet NorthMet Project DEIS were highly critical:

Tribal cooperating agencies also provided detailed page by page comments on the text of the draft EIS, which are contained in its Appendix D.

Read U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Comments (U.S. Department of Interior) [redo as link to pdf – link does not work]

Ongoing work

Over 3,700 public comments were received on the PolyMet NorthMet Draft EIS. More than three-fourths of them were highly critical.

NEXT STEPS:  Agencies are preparing a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) on the PolyMet NorthMet project, likely to be released in Summer of 2012.  We expect that the SDEIS will include the impacts of the proposed land exchange [good link] with the U.S. Forest Service. 

The responsible government agencies and the PolyMet Company are also considering various changes to the project proposal as part of the Supplemental DEIS. The most recent Draft Alternative Summary prepared in October 2011 reflects the current project plan and a comparison made by the MDNR summarizes changes since the DEIS.

When the SDEIS  is released, there will be additional opportunities for public comment. WaterLegacy will provide ongoing information on the SDEIS process.