Groups say Canadian-owned copper-nickel mine is threat to water flowing into Lake Superior watershed
Human rights and environmental groups protested at the PolyMet annual general meeting Wednesday over a proposed copper-nickel mine recently approved in Minnesota, about 50 kilometres from the Canadian border.
Ottawa-based PolyMet has recently obtained final state permits to move ahead with construction of the NorthMet mining complex, which would have three new open pits, waste rock heaps, and a permanent tailings waste dump on a site in the St. Louis River watershed which drains into Lake Superior.
The activists are concerned over the risk of tailings spills which could harm a sensitive watershed, kill fish and affect Indigenous wild rice beds. Representatives from Amnesty International Canada are framing it as a rights issue, pointing to the Mount Polley mine disaster in B.C. when a dam failure sent toxic tailings into a watershed used by Indigenous people.
About 20 people protested outside the PolyMet AGM in Toronto and then walked to the Toronto Stock Exchange to register their opposition. Aaron Klemz, spokesperson for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said they aimed to show financial regulators and shareholders that they are being presented with a case for the mine that doesn’t fit with the facts.
The PolyMet mine would be located on what is now Superior National Forest land and would require a land exchange of 2,700 hectares of lands on which First Nations people have rights to hunt, fish and gather under reserve treaties.
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