AURORA— A largely supportive crowd estimated at just over 400 people turned out at Mesabi East High School on Tuesday to learn how much longer it might take before PolyMet Mining’s proposed NorthMet copper-nickel mine might begin construction. It turns out, it’s anyone’s guess.

Representatives of the Department of Natural Resources offered a brief presentation of the upcoming permitting process, which essentially kicked off in March with the agency’s approval of the project’s environmental impact statement. The public meeting was a legally required step in the permitting process, but was purely informational. The public won’t have a chance to weigh in on the subject until later in the process.

While officials outlined the many steps still ahead in the process, no one from the DNR, nor PolyMet, could indicate when the company might begin to submit applications for the nearly two-dozen different permits required for the project, or how long it might take for state and federal agencies to approve those applications.

DNR Assistant Commissioner Barb Naramore was unwilling to make promises, other than to say, “it won’t be decades.”

It was a comment reflective of the reality that completion of the ten-year long environmental review was far from the end of the process.

Jess Richards, the DNR’s Director of Lands and Minerals cited a laundry list of issues that the agency and PolyMet will need to address in detail before the agency can issue one of the most critical documents— a Permit to Mine. According to Richards, the DNR will need detailed information on stockpile and tailings basin designs, management of runoff, and a closure plan that includes adequate financial assurance. He said such financial assurance is needed to “ensure that Minnesota taxpayers aren’t stuck with the cost of closure and clean-up.”

The financial assurance, according to Richards, will likely include a variety of financial instruments that will be adequate to cover all closure costs, that will be payable when needed, and that won’t be dischargeable through bankruptcy.

It’s a complex task and the state has hired a financial firm, Emmons and Olivier Resources, Inc., to analyze the adequacy of PolyMet’s eventual offer.

And the DNR must still grapple with unresolved issues from the EIS, including which direction groundwater might flow from the proposed mine pits. While the mine and associated processing plant are both located within the St. Louis River watershed, according to Richards, the mine pits would be close to the divide and experts have disagreed on the accuracy of the water modeling completed for the project. Scientists working for tribal authorities contend untreated groundwater from the pits is likely to flow north post-closure, which would send it into the Kawishiwi River watershed, a central watershed within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Naramore said the DNR will be looking for additional information that could possibly clarify the issue as well as defining mitigation strategies to stop a northward flow should it occur.

How long all of this analysis might take is impossible to say at this point, according to Naramore. “It really depends on the shape of the application and how well it meets our expectations,” she said.

DNR and PolyMet officials have met in recent weeks to talk about those expectations and PolyMet spokeperson Bruce Richardson said the company has a good sense of what the DNR will be looking for.

Richardson would only say that PolyMet expects to make its initial applications “soon.” As for the Permit to Mine, that application will probably take the longest time to complete, according to Richardson.

As part of that application, it will be up to PolyMet to propose a financial assurance package. Richardson said the numbers will be based on fundamental engineering and will be very detailed and documented.

Financial backing

While not officially a part of the permitting process, Gov. Mark Dayton has previously indicated that he’ll want a clear sense of PolyMet’s financial ability to actually bring the project to fruition. The recent downturn in prices for major commodities, including copper and nickel, have raised more questions on whether PolyMet will be able to attract the estimated $650 million necessary to get a mining operation underway. PolyMet’s chief financial backer thus far, Swiss-based Glencore, has recently closed copper mining operations elsewhere in the world in order to stem massive financial losses. Glencore is also struggling with an extremely high debt load it took on as a result of a merger and acquisitions it made in recent years.

Richardson said he wasn’t prepared to address such questions at this point, but said the company was finding “plenty of interest” from the financial markets. “The completion of the EIS and the adequacy decision have definitely heightened that interest,” he added.

He predicted that the company will have adequate financial documentation to satisfy the governor when the time comes.

Federal decisions

also a factor

While Tuesday’s meeting highlighted the state permitting process, the project must also gain approval from federal authorities, including the U.S. Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Army Corps and the EPA have authority over the issuance of what’s known as a Section 404 Wetlands Permit, which is necessary as part of the company’s mitigation for the loss of hundreds of acres of natural wetlands at the proposed mine site.

The project also requires Forest Service approval of a proposed land exchange, which would clear the way for open pit mining at the site. Forest Service officials maintain that current federal law prohibits strip mining of the lands in question, which the Forest Service acquired under the Weeks Act, a 1919 law that authorized federal land acquisition for conservation purposes. The Forest Service has issued a draft approval of the land exchange, but a final decision is likely still months away.

Meanwhile, said Richardson, PolyMet has no timeline on when the Army Corps might issue its permit decision.

To date, said Richardson, PolyMet has invested about $200 million to bring the project this far. It spent roughly $90 million on the environmental review process.