The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are close to releasing a joint draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Polymet copper mining project.
That draft, more than a year in the making, will be available for public review and comment later this summer. It will outline environmental concerns about the mining operations, how the company promises to address those concerns and how the state and federal agencies will regulate the operations.
Polymet officials hope to have a final EIS finished and receive state and federal permits early in 2009. The company could be mining copper and producing copper concentrate by late 2009, with the copper processing plant completed by 2010 or 2011, said Latisha Gietzen, company spokeswoman.
