In Response: Skepticism called for over PolyMet's new-studies announcement

First published in the Duluth News Tribune, August 30, 2024

By JT Haines, Northeastern Minnesota Program Director, MCEA Duluth office

After years of promoting a mine proposal that doesn’t meet Minnesota’s environmental standards, international mining company Glencore/PolyMet (now NewRange) announced Aug. 14 that it is studying ways to make its dangerous proposal "better."

In its Aug. 20 editorial (Our View: “ Let more study lead to more responsible mining ”), the News Tribune welcomed the announcement, suggesting that, “whatever the motivation,” we should all “appreciate and support the company’s fresh look at its coming operations.”

Unfortunately, the News Tribune’s glossy response to PolyMet’s announcement left out key context.

The issues that PolyMet says it will now study — including dam design, mine waste storage, and ground and surface water impacts — are the exact issues downstream folks have been demanding be further addressed for over a decade. Indeed, Minnesota courts and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency have sent back or revoked the most important permits on these very issues. In the minds of those of us who have been working on this, no amount of study could fix the problems with PolyMet’s original proposal.

Instead of acknowledging this, the newspaper quoted PolyMet’s inaccurate claim that its newfound interest in addressing these issues “is not called for by the government” (courts and federal agencies are obviously “government”), which minimized the importance of the company’s motives.

PolyMet is not voluntarily enhancing its proposal. It is responding to the fact that major flaws have been revealed after considerable time and effort invested by community groups, tribes, and residents of Minnesota. PolyMet is not giving the proposal a “fresh look.” It is attempting to rebrand and revive a failed proposal. PolyMet’s goal isn’t to be more eco-friendly (or less eco-unfriendly, more accurately). It is to make profit.

This is how PolyMet’s announcement must be understood: as an overdue and necessary admission of failure, not some rare act of corporate beneficence from an international exploiter.

Let’s be even more clear: If we had believed everything PolyMet said the first time, we’d be stuck with an exceedingly dangerous mine, a permanent loss of vital wetlands, and centuries of pollution for the people who live here. Thank goodness we did not.

We should recall also that this announcement came from the same company that has a terrible international record, has actively suppressed evidence about the nature of its proposal, and has until this very moment refused to even acknowledge the concerns that Duluthians have long been pointing to — concerns that repeatedly have been validated.

We will have to wait and see whether these newly announced studies make a difference. If PolyMet finally admits that a wobbly dam, at least 500 years of water pollution, and destruction of carbon-sequestering wetlands upstream of Duluth and the Fond du Lac Band aren’t actually a good idea, that will be worth celebrating.

Meantime, we’d do well to be much clearer about this basic truth: The global mining industry will do exactly what is required of it — nothing more. To protect this precious place, we all need to do more than accept company announcements and claims at face value.