No, environmentalists, tribal leaders, and others in Minnesota “are not trying to shut down the mining industry,” as Nancy Schuldt of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s Resource Management Division stated in an
.
And yes, mining and industry leaders in the state also “want to protect wild rice,” as Chrissy Bartovich of U.S. Steel in Virginia, Minnesota, said in an interview with the Duluth News Tribune recently.
“We understand the cultural significance of it,” Bartovich said. “But it’s got to be done in the right way where you can still have industry and … a healthy rice crop. We need to do things that make sense.”
Minnesota Opinion editorial
West Central Tribune graphic
Among so many issues and debates these days screaming for respectful conversations, open-minded cooperation, sound science, and, yes, common-sense compromise, Minnesota’s state limit on the sulfate that can safely be released into wild rice waters has to rank right up there.
It certainly does up north here, where nothing less than Minnesota’s iconic wild rice and our economy- and jobs-sustaining iron ore mining industry both are at stake. While one side argues the state’s sulfate limit is prohibitively expensive and would be impractically impossible for mines and others to meet while also continuing to operate, the other side counters that the standard is there and necessary to prevent a critical and culturally significant crop from being harmed.
The debate is heating up right now because state regulators recently began applying the always-controversial and long-unenforced standard. The
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
is currently seeking public comment on draft permits with the standard in it for U.S. Steel’s Keetac iron ore mine and tailings basin in Keewatin.
The Iron Range’s other five mines can expect their discharge permits to be next — followed, potentially, by 655 additional industrial facilities, municipal wastewater treatment plants, and others similarly upstream from some 2,400 lakes and streams identified by the MPCA as “used for (the) production of wild rice.”
“Keetac is first, but it is going to domino, (and) not only into agriculture,” said Iron Mining Association Executive Director Kristen Vake of Chisholm. “We’re looking into manufacturing and municipalities. That’s a big one. We’re speaking with local mayors already. In small towns, there are a lot of deep concerns, because there is no way that they would be able to afford water treatment to get to that level. The impact is really big.”
The state’s sulfate standard of 10 parts per million (ppm) was adopted in 1973 based on observations from the 1940s.
Mining and industry leaders argue it’s outdated, that a fresh look is needed utilizing modern research and technology, and that site-specific standards may also be needed because no two water bodies are the same. If the state is going to start enforcing the standard, as appears to now be happening, it needs to be changed so it can more realistically be met, they insist.
Meanwhile, environmentalists, tribal leaders, and others — including John Pastor, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth, who studied for years why and how sulfate affects wild rice — stand by the results. According to the Duluth News Tribune story, Pastor said the standard remains “sound and protective of wild rice,” even decades after being set. It deserves to be applied, they insist.
As the debate continues, level heads and reasonable solutions are needed. Wild rice and its significance and importance deserve to be protected. But so does mining, manufacturing, industries, and wastewater-treating Minnesota cities.
“The intense scrutiny and inflexibility around the 10 (ppm) put a lot of things into jeopardy and into flux,” John Gordon, a senior vice president for U.S. Steel, said in the interview with the newspaper. “We’re trying to find certainty to move forward (and to) continue our very extensive involvement and contributions to upper Minnesota’s economy and the state economy.”
Nothing less than that is at stake.
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