US House votes to overturn Minnesota mining ban, Senate to consider next

[waterwatcher123]

6. Our waste of oxygen, Congressman Stauber, claim to fame is to mine one of the last great wilderness areas.

This company wants to mine under Birch Lake. As such, one small mistake in fracturing the bedrock will dump the contents of this lake into the mine shaft. The mine waste in the mine-shaft will weather and produce sulfate laden water that will likely be discharged into the St. Louis River Watershed and eventually into Lake Superior. The proponents of this mine have claimed for years that they can contain this mine wastewater. However, evaporation does not exceed precipitation in northern MN (part of the reason there are lakes and wetlands in the first place). So, this sulfate laden water will eventually get to the point where it will either overflow, seep out or they will have to discharge it into a river. This acidic acid drainage will damage wild rice and the fishery of the St. Louis River, and eventually flow into Lake Superior.

There is already a 50 mile long scar from mining in Northern Minnesota. It is larger than the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area and is full of mine shafts and pits. It has so screwed up the hydrology of rivers and lakes that some rivers only exist due to regular pumping of groundwater from mine pits (I know this from having worked on watershed models of this region for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency).

https://bwca.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=maps.lakedetail&locid=2025&zoom=14&size=500&locname=Birch%20Lake