Riversend wrote on Dec 15^th, 2009 at 2:17am:

Akula: you're putting a lot of good info out here, and was wondering if you could clarify a couple things :question. Is the land in the preposed polytec mine U.S taxpayer land, or mineing Co. land :question

The land is owned by the US Forest Service. PolyMet owns the mineral rights, but having the mineral rights doesn't necessarily give them the automatic right to mine. In order to mine, the US Forest Service would have to sell the land to PolyMet, releasing it to private ownership by the company. The details of this aren't clear yet, but some sort of land exchange would likely have to take place, presumably to prevent a net loss of forested lands.

Also, the land, which is owned by the Federal government, is part of a Ceded Treaty to area natives, which grants them permanent access to the land for hunting, fishing, and gathering. From what I understand, if this deal were to go through, then as per the treaty, PolyMet would have to set aside some other lands for native access.



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In "your take of the thing so far" you state " some of the tribal organizations which were partners in the event"... is the "event" the draft Eis , The Eis or was the event the film? What or which event?

The 'event' in this case would be the constructing of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS).



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Under Scope and Cost of Reclamation in the EIS , you state "An actual reclamation plan would come later as part of the reqiirements for obtaining a permit...bla, bla ,bla, plan to be updated yearly, bla, bla. Yet the way I read you think until polymet can come up with some better reclamation ideas, we shouldn't let them go forward with their mine :question

Without at least a basic idea for reclamation, one can't fully assess the possible long-term environmental impacts. They have to come up with some reclamation ideas in the Environmental Impact Statements, but they do not have to go into specific technical detail about how these ideas would be carried out. So they are ideas, and not an engineering plan or a technical directive. Those things would come later, and would have to be approved by the State before they issued the Permit to Mine.

My take is that the reclamation ideas presented in the draft are inadequate.

But since this is a "Draft" Environmenal Impact Statement, the cooperating agencies will take the public's comments and critiques, and work them into a new, final Environmental Impact Statement, which will then be forwarded to lawmakers to assist them in making the go/no go decision.

I should mention that if a land sale or exchange were to take place between the US Forest Service and PolyMet, then the US Forest Service would conduct their own Environmental Impact Statement to examine the good's and bad's of the exchange.

We are still in the very beginning phases of the decision process.



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No offense to you intended, but please take this as helpful imput to your imput...To me you are not yet sure which side of the tightrope you want to fall off of :-?

No offense taken. It's a complicated process, and I'm by no means an expert on its intricacies.

I am, at this point, undecided on whether or not we should allow PolyMet to open this mine. It would be easier for me to get behind an underground mine, because all of the major reclamation concerns are eliminated by that type of operation - you can backfill an underground mine and leave a small mark on the surface which can easily be revegetated.

The NorthMet deppsit, which PolyMet is asking to mine, is just one of several along a large mineralized trend in this particular corner of the state. Some of the others ARE best exploited by an underground mining process, but they are held by different junior companies who are not as far along in the exploration and development process.

The point is that even if we don't allow PolyMet's project to go through, we still have options for developing our resources. We can still bring jobs and industry to the Range, and we can still collect royalties on the commodities sold - and do it more safely, without digging another giant open pit in the ground.

I just don't want the economic situation to alter the decisions made - in other words, I don't want the immediate need for jobs allow the wrong mine to begin operations, and create an unnecessary disturbance that carries avoidable long-term effects.



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If you don't mind me asking,,,, Who is your employer, and what type of position do you have that allows you to open an internet post with the declaration "Since I've got lots of time to kill at work"...Sounds to me like your employeer needs to trim a little fat and tighten the ol' belt buckle a little :exclamation ;)

I will submit the idea to management, but since I work for myself, I don't forsee any resulting disciplinary action ;D

If you must know, I am doing some wellsite geological consulting, for some oil projects in north-western North Dakota. The 'action' is slow, and I live out of a trailer on a rig site for a month at a time, so I end up with a lot of down time.