Support the Timberjay by making a donation.

Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Coalition of groups seek stay of PolyMet tailings dam permit

Cite recent collapse of dam of similar design that killed more than 100 in Brazil

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 2/2/19

REGIONAL— A coalition of environmental groups, a longtime Minnesota state senator, and the Fond du Lac band are calling on the Department of Natural Resources to reconsider the tailings basin dam …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Coalition of groups seek stay of PolyMet tailings dam permit

Cite recent collapse of dam of similar design that killed more than 100 in Brazil

Posted

REGIONAL— A coalition of environmental groups, a longtime Minnesota state senator, and the Fond du Lac band are calling on the Department of Natural Resources to reconsider the tailings basin dam permit the agency recently approved for PolyMet, after yet another collapse of a similar type of dam, this time in Brazil.

The environmental groups and tribal officials recently asked the DNR to put a stay on the dam permit, but the agency has, so far, refused to do so. Critics of the mine plan say the method of dam construction, known as the “upstream method,” is widely considered the least safe method of tailings basin dam construction. According to National Geographic, which has reported on the Jan. 25, 2019 collapse of a dam at the Corrego de Feijao mine in Brazil, it’s an inexpensive method of dam construction largely confined to Third World countries these days. The Brazilian dam collapse has reportedly killed at least 111 people, with 235 still reported missing.

The latest dam collapse comes just over three years after a similar collapse buried villages near another Brazilian mine, killing dozens, and it has prompted the mining company involved, Vale S.A., to announce that it was suspending operations at ten mines and decommissioning 19 mine waste dams using the upstream method of dam construction. In 2014, the collapse of the Mount Polley tailings basin dam in British Columbia flooded thousands of acres with toxic mud and sludge, although no deaths were reported.

Environmentalists in Minnesota say the DNR has ignored the advice of experts in allowing PolyMet to use the same method here in Minnesota.

“This is yet another example of the DNR brushing aside concerns about how the dam will be built and failing to require less dangerous alternatives,” stated the coalition of Minnesota environmental groups in a joint press statement issued Jan. 31. “Two-thirds of global mine tailings dam collapses involve an “upstream construction” dam.”

State Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said he strongly supports the request for a reconsideration of the dam permit. “Defenders of PolyMet say ‘we have strong mining regulations, so such a tragedy could never happen here.’ But they are wrong,” he said. “The PolyMet mine waste dam could fail. In fact, Minnesotans should know that one of the engineers who analyzed the PolyMet plan for storage of mining waste described it as a ‘Hail Mary type of concept’ that ‘will eventually fail.’”

Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said the tailings dam plan is “obsolete and dangerous.”

“The disaster in Brazil has once again shown that PolyMet’s plan to store sulfide mine waste tailings behind an unsafe dam begun in the 1950’s is a risk that Minnesota can’t bear,” she said.

PolyMet spokesperson Bruce Richardson, however, stated that the tailings dam “was one of the most studied aspects of the entire NorthMet project during its 14-year environmental review and permitting process.”

Richardson said the dam safety was reviewed by independent experts and some enhancements were incorporated into the design as a result of input from those experts. That includes the addition of a “rock buttress and additional monitoring stations. “The NorthMet facility was found to meet every factor of safety for dam stability,” he said.

PolyMet will be utilizing and expanding an existing tailings basin, originally built more than 50 years ago by LTV. “There are many more active and much-larger iron-ore tailings basins (of similar design) in Northern Minnesota that have existed for decades as well,” he said in a statement.

DNR officials did not immediately respond to questions from the Timberjay.