In the mid-1950s, Erie Mining Company opened a taconite mine and plant in the Hoyt Lakes area. It shipped concentrated ore to Eastern steel mills and employed as many as 6,000.
In the 1950s, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in Montana switched from underground to open-pit mining. It dug 1 billion cubic yards of copper ore and waste rock. It closed its last active mine in 1982 when copper prices fell, pulled out its equipment, and took its bags of money and left town. Like all mine pits, this one began filling with water. In 1995, a flock of migrating geese sat down on the lake to rest. Nearly 350 died. Authorities checked the carcasses and found burns inside their bodies. The most obvious cause was the water. It seems the pit lake had morphed into something like battery acid. Authorities now had a problem but not the cure — and not much time. If the pit reached the level of the groundwater, it could pollute humongous amounts of groundwater. The experts working on it could only estimate a cleanup of 500 years or more. Maybe forever.
PolyMet Mining is now planning copper-nickel mining in Northeastern Minnesota, the mine seen by some as a supposed “savior of the Range.” PolyMet posted money for cleanup. Some feel PolyMet should put any profit on hold because it will probably take that much and possibly hundreds and hundreds of times more for cleanup.
I cannot see why PolyMet would sit there pouring money down a rat hole that nobody knows the depth of or how much it will take for cleanup. I really cannot call that a “savior” of the Range.
Bruce Lind
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Alborn
