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 Maybe Babbitt’s Welcome Sign should read as above. This picture of the Babbitt Welcome sign area epitomizes the incorrigible nature of the “Mine, Log, and Lease the Hell Out of These Lands” crowd. They can not tolerate one dissenting vote without shouting “Dump Otto” from all the bully pulpits of Northeastern Minnesota. The statements made by the mayor of Babbitt at the Tuesday Group meeting in Ely where State Auditor Rebecca Otto spoke (11-26-2013) clearly show the good mayor still does not understand the difference between iron mining and sulfide mining. Anyone who is still locked in the “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” mindset and is not asking the hard questions, as Rebecca Otto is doing, is only looking at benefits and ignoring the risks of sulfide mining. As auditor of the state of Minnesota, Otto is tasked with evaluating the costs and risks to the taxpayers of Minnesota. And, from the response of the overflowing crowd at Ely Tuesday Group, she is doing what she should be doing, doing it well, and we are thankful she is willing to shoulder the burdens of these hard questions. Most politicians in Minnesota are acting as if the numerous severe risks and potential costs to taxpayers are trivial. Otto is the first Minnesota state official to stand up and say we should have a long hard look at the cost to Minnesota taxpayers with non-ferrous (sulfide) mining.
Click here to see the complete video of Rebecca Otto’s talk in Ely.
For any conscientious individual, maybe one with a bit of critical thinking ability, Rebecca Otto’s stance is the ONLY logical and practical stance for a person with her responsibility and for the well being of Minnesota. The extreme mining reactionaries are so far from any truth on this matter they should be ashamed of themselves. However, shame is not an emotion they know and truth about mining is not something they even want to think about. I’ve only found them boldly confident in their “MINE THE HELL OUT OF THESE LANDS” position. The above sign should read…KEEP OTTO –DUMP POLYMET!!!
We proudly support Rebecca Otto and have Otto bumper stickers, remittance envelopes for contributions, and literature. If after viewing her position in the video link above and you would like to support her also, please go to this page to contact her or support her as a volunteer or with an online donation http://www.rebeccaotto.com/contact.html
View Presentation by Bill Carter author of “Boom, Bust, Boom”
In a speech to an overflowing crowd at Vermilion Community College in Ely, Minn., author and filmmaker Bill Carter talked about copper mining and the copper industry around the world. He talked about what he learned in doing research for his book “Boom, Bust, Boom” and his concern for his family and friends in Bisbee, Ariz., and Bristol Bay, Alaska. He concluded, due to the always-present extremely large piles of hazardous waste material generated by copper mining, there are some places where copper mining absolutely should not be done. Bristol Bay in Alaska and the Arrowhead Region of Northeastern Minnesota are two such places. It is too late for Bisbee, Ariz. and numerous other historical copper mining districts as the permanent damage to the land and water has already been done. In this presentation he covers every sales pitch given by past and present copper mining employees, CEOs, and pitchmen, and with historical evidence refutes them all one by one.
Bill Carter, at a young age, has seen more of the world than most of us ever will and has experienced more of man’s political folly than most of us would want to see, let alone experience. “Boom, Bust ,Boom” is Bill Carter’s third book. To fully appreciate “Boom, Bust, Boom,” I recommend reading his other two books, “Fools Rush In” and “Red Summer,” in that order, the order in which he wrote them. He is learning and defining himself in each adventure, which he shares through his writings and talks. Because he is obviously caring and non-judgmental about the people involved, on both sides, he is able to come to a more reasoned conclusion than those of us who are emotionally invested in one outcome or the other. He points out that we must come to grips with the fact that we all need and use a LOT of copper. That fact is undeniable. It is also undeniable that copper mining results is a massive quantity of hazardous waste material to deal with ALWAYS. It is also undeniable that mining companies have NEVER properly dealt with the hazardous waste of copper mining. The logical conclusion is that copper mining should NOT be done in certain places. It is my personal view that, along with Bristol Bay, Alaska, the Arrowhead Region of Northeastern Minnesota — including the Rainy River Watershed, the Lake Superior Watershed and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — is one of those NO COPPER MINING places.
In Ely there is a schism,
caused by filiopietism *,
but Elyites tell mining jobs are the sell
and NO to clean water environmentalism!
* “the tragic circle”
The Lesson of the Monkeys-The Tragic Circle
 (Published: Saturday 19 January 2013 in Nation of Change)
After Hurricane Sandy swept through the northeast of the United States late October 2012, millions of New Yorkers were left for days without electricity. But they still had access to drinking water, thanks to New York City’s reliance on protected watershed areas for potable water.
Instead of using electric-powered water treatment plans, New York City brings its high-quality drinking water through aqueducts connected to protected areas in the nearby Catskill/Delaware forests and wetlands – just one example of how protecting watersheds can provide residential areas with drinking water and flood and pollution protection at bargain basement prices.
New York saved between four and six billion dollars on the cost of water treatment plants by protecting forests and compensating farmers in the Catskills for reducing pollution in lakes and streams.
In 2011, countries around the world invested more than eight billion dollars in similar watershed projects around the world, according to the State of Watershed Payments 2012 report released Thursday. That year, China led the way, accounting for 91 percent of watershed investment.
“Whether you need to save water-starved China from economic ruin or protect drinking water for New York City, investing in natural resources is emerging as the most cost-efficient and effective way to secure clean water and recharge our dangerously depleted streams and aquifers,” said Michael Jenkins, president of Forest Trends, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the United States, which compiled the report.
Previous studies have shown that pollution, the building of dams, agricultural runoff, conversion of wetlands, and waterworks engineering have severely affected global river systems. The wealthier the country, the bigger the threat to river systems, primarily because of expensive waterworks engineering, according to the first-ever health assessment of river ecosystems around the world, as previously reported by IPS.Promoting a new approach
Given the water engineering mentality of the 1990s, it wasn’t easy to convince health and safety officials that a “green waterworks” approach would work for New York City, said Genevieve Bennett, lead author of the Watershed Payments report and a research analyst with Ecosystem Marketplace.
But trees, grasses and plants are extremely effective at cleaning and retaining water, as well as reducing sedimentation that clogs water reservoirs, Bennett told IPS. “The benefits from these watershed programs extend far beyond water: they support biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and provide income for the rural poor,” she said. In watershed protection programs such as those in New York, farmers are paid to use soil and water conservation techniques – payment for good stewardship that benefits the public, Bennett added.
Government regulations, however, remain a major constraint to similar projects in many countries. New York’s well documented and highly successful strategy has not been emulated by many other cities, including those in China or India, where engineering expertise is highly prized and huge engineering works are a matter of national pride.
Investing in sustaining existing ecosystems is better than destroying them and attempting to engineer solutions, Charles Vörösmarty, an expert on global water resources, previously told IPS, “Water management costs will skyrocket if developing countries adopt the approach of developed nations,” he added.
China is one country that has begun to change its approach, according to the report. About 108,000 residents in struggling communities upstream of the southern coastal city of Zhuhai are receiving new health insurance benefits in exchange for adopting land management practices to improve drinking water in the region. “There are lots of different ways watershed investments are being made in China, some good and some bad. There’s lots of learning happening,” said Bennett.
Beginning of change
In Latin America, the trend in water programs is to offer compensation other than cash for protecting water resources. In Bolivia’s Santa Cruz valley, for example, more than 500 families receive beehives, fruit plants and wire, which can be used for fencing to keep livestock away from rivers and stream banks, in return for their water protection efforts.
A Swedish local water authority found it cheaper to pay for a program to establish blue mussel beds in Gullmar Fjord to filter nitrate pollution than to build a new treatment facility on shore. In Uganda, a beer brewer is paying for the protection of wetlands to retain their valuable capacity to maintain a steady and abundant supply of clean water.
The vast majority of investments in watersheds are with public money. The private sector still thinks providing good quality water is up to governments, Bennett said. However, the public sector is unlikely to be able to invest the 17.7 trillion dollars needed for water infrastructure by 2030, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
A green infrastructure is by far the cheaper option and provides a host of other benefits, Bennett concluded.
View original article Here:
 Paula Maccabee, General Counsel and Advocacy Directory for Water Legacy at Ely Tuesday Group, August 6, 2013. A larger group than usual attended this event and many, from the questions asked and concerns shared, were new to the topic of Sulfide mining. From the response of the crowd, they were very appreciative of the work being done by all the individuals involved in educating the public about Sulfide and Hard Rock Mining. She talked about the facts, fiction and fairy-tales of the proposed Polymet Copper Nickel Sulfide Mine for Northeaster Minnesota. She also pointed out some of the severe weaknesses in the Polymet plan and the dire consequences to the health and well being of people in the affected regions, the St. Louis River, Lake Superior watershed. It will also have ramifications for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, as she explains. You can see her complete talk here:
Nancy Schuldt from the Fon Du Lac band of Lake Superior Chippewa talks about the significant problems hard rock mining has caused to the St. Louis River and the Lake Superior Watershed. She also discusses the water quality problems posed by the proposed Sulfide Mining in this region. You can view here talk at VCC in Ely on July 22 here.
Northeastern Minnesota is, for the most part in one form or another, wetlands. Lakes, rivers, swamps, bogs, marshes, etc. The two watersheds, the Rainy River and the Lake Superior, make up the largest fresh water system in the world. These watersheds are vital to the health and well being of every Minnesotan and it could reasonably be argued to all people of the world. It’s proper functioning is constantly under threat by local, county and state (occasionally even nationally as when South West U.S. politicians suggested running a water pipeline from the Great Lakes to their regions of misused and dwindling water resources) interests with little understanding of the importance of the health of these watersheds.
  
 Summary:
-“If someone said ‘name me a prosperous mining town,’ you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a name.” –Thomas Power, Ph.D., Chairman Univ. of Montana Economics Dept.[1] See Dr. Power’s Ely Presentation (similar talk recently given in Duluth) Here:
Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) are a grassroots group of sportsmen and women who are united by a passion to protect and conserve the public lands, forests, mountains, prairies, streams, and lakes that support our hunting and angling traditions.
We respectfully request that the International Joint Commission (IJC) examine and report upon the water-related impacts from sulfide mining exploration and development within the Rainy River and Lake Superior Basins.
“Mining without harm” and “environmentally safe mining” may sound great, but there is zero evidence to back up the claim that sulfide mining can be done without causing devastating watershed pollution. In fact, mining of sulfide-metal ore has never been accomplished without causing eventual acid-metal leachate pollution of ground and surface waters. As a result, Wisconsin placed a moratorium on sulfide mining operations in 1997, until it could be demonstrated that such a mine would not pollute the water.
In fact, there are no examples in the world of such a mine that has not polluted.
America’s public lands—and the fish and wildlife that call them home—are struggling to recover from the effects of a century of hard-rock mining. In 2004, the federal government estimated it would cost taxpayers $7.8 billion to clean up 63 of the mining operations designated as Superfund sites by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; cleaning up all abandoned hard-rock mines would cost between $20 billion and $54 billion.
In January 2012, the EPA released its annual Toxic Release Inventory. Once again, metal mining was at the top of the list of polluters across the country. Such mining was responsible for 41 percent of all pollution in our country last year.
Pequaywan Township north of Duluth has become the third township in the region to pass a resolution asking for a go-slow-or-don’t-go approach to sulfide mining.
The resolution asks for a state “prove it first” law that shows copper mines can be operated and closed without environmental degradation somewhere else before they are allowed to operate here.
Mining has historically always been a boom and bust industry, and in the last 20 years sixteen hard rock mines declared bankruptcy. This devastates local economies dependent on the mining industry and forces taxpayers to cover the enormous cost of cleanup and restoration.
If mining companies’ promises were true, northern Minnesota would be the wealthiest part of the country after some 130 years of iron ore mining in the region. As Minnesota BHA co-chair Darrell Spencer says, “The jobs are temporary. The profits are going to foreign ownership and foreign investors. The copper is going to Canada to be processed. The minerals will end up in China helping their GDP. And Minnesotans will be left to live with the to
“In Minnesota, the fishing industry alone supports 50,000 jobs and recreational fishing brings in $3 billion a year,” adds Minnesota BHA vice-chair Erik Jensen, “which would be in jeopardy when acid-mine drainage (AMD) leaches into creeks, streams, rivers and watersheds, eventually ending up in Lake Superior.
“There’s no doubt in my mind, conservation is at a crossroads right now,” former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. “It’s about jobs,” Salazar added. “We know hunting and fishing and outdoor recreation have a huge economic contribution to this country.” Minnesota’s legislators should follow the advice of Interior Secretary Salazar, and not jeopardize tens of thousands of sustainable long-term jobs for a couple hundred temporary sulfide mining jobs that will cost the rest of us millions, and possibly billions.
These short-sighted mining proposals amount to gambling with the future of our Great Outdoors, and Minnesota’s nearly 2 million hunters and anglers—and the bait shops, resorts, fishing guides, and hotels that depend on their business—won’t stand for it. They understand that healthy public wildlife habitat, rivers, and streams are the foundation supporting the American pastimes of hunting and fishing.
We request that the Commission proceed with an analysis and recommendation regarding these proposed sulfide mining operations as soon as practical. Thank you in advance for your efforts to protect northern Minnesota’s pristine waters and wildlands and wildlife, and for considering our “boots-on-the-ground” input regarding these sulfide mining proposals.
Sulfide Mining Information/Resources
The Complete Article can be read here: We respectfully request that the International Joint Commission (IJC)
 Polar Amplification is one climate element changing Minnesota Significant changes in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Ecosystem are underway do to climate change and invasive species. Lee Frehlich is the Director of the U of M, Center for Hardwood Ecology. He teaches courses in Forest Fire Ecology and Landscape Ecology on the St. Paul Campus. He is a senior member of the Conservation Biology, Natural Resources Science Management, Ecology, and Invasive Species Graduate Programs. This talk was given to the Ely Tuesday Group, May 28, 2013.
Click Here to see Dr. Frelich’s full talk on the climate factors changing the face of North Eastern Minnesota. And, view his slide show here:
What Dr. Frehlich is describing is what has been occurring for some time in our region and continues to accelerate. The Climate Change deniers may want to use a different phrase, one that describes what they have seen and what they can not deny and that would be Increasingly Frequent and Catastrophic Weather Events, One has to look no further than the 10-11″ in one day rain fall in Duluth last summer, when Ely received 4-5 inches in that same time period.
Dr. Frehlich explains, from his research, some of the significant factors changing the face of the BWCAW and Northeastern Minnesota ecosystems.
 On June 18, 2013 persons interested in the proposed Copper Sulfide Mining operations, that will one way or another very significantly effect the BWCA and Lake Superior watersheds, had the opportunity to listen to the experts. At noon Brad Moore, formerly of the MPCA, now with Polymet presented the company line answering questions and indicating that there should be no environmental problems concerning Sulfide mining here excluding any catastrophic events which he admits could occur. Watch Brad Moore’s presentation here.
 Dr. Tom Power having studied the pure economics of mining and mining communities showed a very different side to Copper Sulfide Mining. From a strict economics analysis of the Costs and Benefits of mining, Dr. Power points to areas of concern that are currently not being adequately addressed by the communities and their leaders most likely effected by this type of mining. Download and View Dr. Power’s power point presentation.
Or, watch his presentation as a video here.
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