In a set of well-attended public meetings recently held in Duluth, Ely, and Isabella, WaterLegacy Advocacy Director and Counsel Paula Maccabee shared information regarding risks to human health associated with sulfide mining. At the top of that list is the release of mercury into air and water.

In a separate interview, Cloquet’s Leonard Anderson, founder of St. Louis River Watch, explained how levels of mercury become elevated in aquatic creatures and are then passed on to humans. Across the globe, an ancient bacteria that requires sulfates to survive thrives in organic-rich sediments that fall to the bottoms of lakes, bays, and sluggish rivers. When sulfate levels in the muck pass the threshold of four milligrams per litre, these archi-bacteria take elemental mercury and convert it to methyl-mercury.

The methylated mercury is ingested, entering animal tissues. Higher concentrations appear farther up the food chain, with fish, water fowl, and humans at the apex. The Minnesota Department of Health has conducted studies comparing mercury levels in humans throughout the Great Lakes region.

Their conclusion is that children on the North Shore of Lake Superior have mercury levels far beyond those found elsewhere in the region. Families fish, pregnant and nursing mothers eat the fish, and mercury—a known neurotoxin—is passed to their fetuses and children. One in ten North Shore children is born with unsafe levels.

Anderson sees methylmercury poisoning as a social justice issue. Native American populations especially rely on fish as a food source. Hmong fishers come to northern lakes and rivers in the spring, harvesting fish to bring back to the Twin Cities. Fish with the highest levels of mercury are walleye, larger catfish, and bass.

Maccabee emphasized that sulfates increase the bioaccumulation of mercury. The EPA estimates that at present, 440,000 acres of land are polluted by sulfide mining in the U.S., with the sulfates continually leaching into surface and ground water. The EPA estimates it will cost $54 billion to clean up these mines. The agency has never had close to that amount of funding.

There are 68,000 acres of mining features already in the St. Louis watershed. At the heavy metal/sulfide Hoyt Lakes mines proposed by Polymet, tailings will be dumped on top of areas previously polluted by mining company, LTV. All of Polymet’s waste water will drain into Colby Lake and into the St. Louis River.

Polymet is a shell corporation of Glencore/Xstrata. The Chinese component, Xstrata, just merged with the giant trading and mining corporation Glencore this past May, and has a contract for metals extracted from Minnesota. Glencore is currently being prosecuted by both Italy and France, has questionable dealings in Africa, and has had a bad record for decades around the world.

This is the company that says they will treat effluent from lined pits, but not till 40 years in the future, and then only if there’s overflow. Lined pits are notorious for leaks, but Polymet has no plan to treat leaked effluent. The proposed mine will provide no liners for tailings basins nor for waste rock. Revealed in an internal document, the tailings basin is described as a two-mile tailings dump where 144 feet of sulfur and metal-loaded tailings will be dropped on top of existing tailings from previous mining. These basins are not stable; they’re developed over underground rivers.

Besides gigantic tailings dumps, the 20-story-high waste rock pile will cover 526 acres. Arsenic is one of the carcinogens that will be released upstream of wells and of Hoyt Lakes drinking water, along with manganese, which, at elevated levels, is known to reduce IQ in children.

Huge amounts of water will be removed from area wetlands. Direct wetland loss will be 913 acres, with a potential 8000-acre loss, all land with a high level of diversity.

Polymet itself has said that the level of waste after 200 years will not decrease. Maccabee pointed out that financial assurance would be astronomical and that no mechanism could secure that amount of money over such a time period. She said that at this point, Governor Mark Dayton has not given state agencies direction on Polymet, and that he has apologized for his “ban the EPA” faux pas.

Questioned about sources of copper, she said recycling could provide for future needs and that recycled copper takes 10 to 15 percent the energy needed to produce new copper. She was hopeful the public will speak up regarding their concerns.