Last week, Minnesota’s 4th District US Representative, Betty McCollom, sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 Administrator, Susan Hedman, urging the US Environmental Protection Agency to use the resources provided by Congress to conduct a cumulative effects assessment (CEA) of mining impacts to the Lake Superior Basin. McCollom asked that the EPA “clearly inform citizens of the generational consequences of sulfide mining to impacted eco-systems, human health and the basin’s tremendous water resource.”

A more detailed letter to the EPA asking for a CEA was sent last month by 59 conservation, faith-based and tribal groups from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Asking for an analysis of the impacts of mining on clean air, fresh water, mercury contamination and public health across the entire Lake Superior Basin, the broad-ranging groups included Whole Foods Community Cooperative, Northwoods Wolf Alliance, the Izaak Walton League, Peace United Church of Christ Food and Environmental Team and the League of Women Voters in MN, WI and MI.

Citing Great Lakes water quality treaties with Canada, legal obligations to tribes on lands ceded to the US and a history of mercury contamination and other pollution, the groups asked for the first-ever comprehensive analysis of mining impacts on one of the most important freshwater resources on earth.
In addition to the controversial Polymet sulfide mine proposal in Minnesota, other mine projects that would affect air and water quality across the Lake Superior Basin include: the Twin Metals sulfide mine proposal in MN, the recently permitted Eagle and Copperwood mines in Michigan, the proposed Gogebic taconite mine in Wisconsin and the proposed Marathon mine and operating Lac des Isles mine in Ontario.

Although Polymet spokesperson, Bruce Richardson, responded that the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement contains an entire chapter devoted to a cumulative assessment, he declined to point out that this latest EIS limits its discussion to the Partridge and Embarrass Rivers. The St. Louis River and Lake Superior itself are left out completely.

The December letter requests assessments of 1) the resource value of wetlands, headwaters, streams, lakes, floodplains, aquifers, estuaries and rivers of the Lake Superior Basin
2) the cumulative affects on water quality of dredge and fill activities, dewatering and inundation, air emissions, and water discharges
3) the cumulative effects of mining activity on water quantity, including long-term effects on surface and groundwater resources, and the degree to which waters have been appropriated and diverted from the Lake Superior Basin
4) the cumulative effects of mining on aquatic and boreal eco-systems, including effects on flora and fauna that are threatened, endangered and of significance to tribal communities.

Paula Maccabee, Counsel/Advocacy Director for WaterLegacy explains, “A cumulative assessment of the pollution of our air and water from mining has never been done. The time for this analysis is now, before irretrievable damage is done to Lake Superior’s precious freshwater resources.” She maintains this is the only way to know the total effects of former, ongoing and proposed mining activity on natural resources and on human beings.