NSS Weekly: What’s Next for Copper-Nickel Mining in Minnesota?

Transcript

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INTRO: You are listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a weekly newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota, produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's community radio stations.

BRITT AAMODT: I'm Britt Aamodt.

VICTOR PALOMINO: And I'm Victor Palomino. Minnesota has a rich history of mining and mineral extraction, and as new metal exploration projects gain momentum, many are raising questions about the impact on their lives and the environment.

BRITT AAMODT: This week, we hear how residents and tribal leaders are responding to a proposed copper-nickel mine in Central Minnesota. And how the mining industry addresses concerns about water quality, tribal nations' sovereignty, and the preservation of cultural heritage.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: But first, North Star Stories Xan Holston with some of the news that made the headlines around the state.

ISAIAH FAITH COALITION: Blaming an entire community is not accountability. Scapegoating is not a public safety strategy.

XAN HOLSTON: Minnesota faith leaders warn President Trump's rhetoric towards Somali Americans is encouraging violence. Clergy from ISAIAH, a statewide multiracial faith coalition, gathered in Saint Paul to denounce comments the president made on a social media app, Truth Social. In his post, Trump said Somalis view Minnesotans as weak and stupid, and called for Minnesotans to fight back.

ISAIAH FAITH COALITION: Fight back against war. What exactly is the president asking people to do?

XAN HOLSTON: The post is a continuation of Trump's attacks against Somali Americans, whom he has previously called "garbage." His post also follows recent Twin Cities shootings that police say are linked to Somali gang-like activity, including the shooting at an Eden Prairie homecoming football game earlier this month. One pastor warned against language that casts suspicion on an entire community, calling back to a phrase used to demonize Black youth decades ago.

ISAIAH FAITH COALITION: In the 90s, we heard language of super predators. Today, we hear language of Somali gangs.

XAN HOLSTON: The group is calling on elected officials to reject the president's rhetoric and help prevent more violence.

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XAN HOLSTON: Meanwhile, the man accused of shooting two people outside Eden Prairie High School's homecoming football game must now wear an electronic monitor. A judge added release conditions at his first court appearance after he posted $100,000 bond. He faces assault and riot charges and returns to court in December. Four others are now also facing riot charges for the fight that broke out before the shooting, including one of the two people shot.

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FAWN YOUNGBEAR-TIBBETTS: Something was protecting our language.

XAN HOLSTON: A room full of irreplaceable Dakota language teaching materials survived a fire that devastated the offices around it inside the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Building in Minneapolis. Fawn Youngbear-Tibbetts directs a Dakota and Ojibwe language immersion preschool program with offices there. She says the curriculum room that housed the Dakota Language Archives escaped damage, even as the fire destroyed computers and other equipment.

FAWN YOUNGBEAR-TIBBETTS: The sprinkler didn't even go off. It's the only room in that building that was not destroyed.

XAN HOLSTON: She says other materials remain in question, including tape recordings of elders who have since died and ceremonial items. The fire started at and gutted the building next door to the Chippewa Tribe Building. Youngbear-Tibbetts says flames broke through the firewall separating the two buildings. The damage also displaced the Fond du Lac and Bois Forte Band's urban offices and a White Earth Elders Council space.

FAWN YOUNGBEAR-TIBBETTS: Both of their offices are decimated.

XAN HOLSTON: She says beyond the offices, the building serves as a gathering place with community meals, a food shelf, and space for funerals. Volunteers are helping recover what can be salvaged from the building, while the organization seeks temporary or permanent space nearby. Youngbear-Tibbetts says the preschool's classrooms are at another location, and classroom activities won't be affected.

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XAN HOLSTON: St. Paul Public Schools is facing a budget crunch and considering cutting staff after a dramatic decrease in students this fall. In a letter, the district superintendent says many of the students who haven't returned are English language learners. She points to Operation Metro Surge, immigration changes, and fewer new families settling in St. Paul.

And finally,

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XAN HOLSTON: it's not the wreck of the Edmund Fitz; it's the A. H. Pitts. This summer's drought means low water at the mouth of the Amnicon River on Lake Superior's south shore near Superior, Wisconsin, exposing the scattered remains of the tugboat. The Pitts was built in Wisconsin in 1923, later moved to Duluth, and was abandoned and burned at the river's mouth in 1951. It may never live in legend like the Fitz, but the Pitts is getting its moment in the sun, and you can catch a glimpse if you go while the water's still low. For North Star Stories, I'm Xan Holston.

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BRITT AAMODT: This year, Minnesotans are packing city halls and sending in their opinions during public comment periods to express how new mining projects could affect their lives and the environment.

VICTOR PALOMINO: In Central Minnesota, a proposed copper-nickel mine has community members asking what the project could mean for them. Reporter Maija Hecht has the story.

SHANAI MATTESON: I feel like our communities are being overlooked. We're also being underestimated. It's very, very strange that we're like ready to protect the Boundary Waters, which is which is so important for all these reasons, and they're silent about Talon.

MAIJA HECHT: Earlier this year, Minnesotans got the news that the United States Senate ended federal protections for land surrounding the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. President Trump signed it into law. Later, Governor Tim Walz issued an executive order to prevent the mining of copper, nickel, and other precious metals, which are increasingly in demand to meet industrial and energy transition goals. Now, in Central Minnesota, a mine that would extract the same metals is further along in the permitting process. Last month, a public comment period for the Tamarack Mining Project proposed by the company Talon Metals closed with 4,000 submissions to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, voicing opinions and concerns about the potential mine. Shanai Matteson, a King County resident and would-be neighbor to the mine, has spent a lot of time thinking about the big picture with her community.

SHANAI MATTESON: The Talon project is proposed for an even wetter environment and an area where there is a natural resource, wild rice, that is treaty protected and is the most abundant right there. We're in the phase where the DNR is going to decide how much to scope, like what is part of the study of the environmental impacts of this mine. This is the critical phase.

MAIJA HECHT: Talon Metals' Tamarack Project carries similar concerns to the mining heavily debated in the Boundary Waters. When waste rock from copper nickel mining is exposed to air and water, it produces a toxic runoff called acid mine drainage. This type of mining has never been done before in Minnesota, and according to research, has a potential global legacy of long-lasting pollution. To address environmental concerns, Talon Metals proposed a plan to keep tailings enclosed in underground tunnels, above ground warehouses, and vehicles for transportation to their processing facility in Michigan.

JESSICA JOHNSON: From those early conversations, that's really where we started to understand that one of the key concerns was processing and tailings management in that water-rich area.

MAIJA HECHT: Talon Metals representative Jessica Johnson says the company is making adjustments to protect water quality.

JESSICA JOHNSON: That enclosed operation really reduces the amount of water that the ore comes in contact with. There are ways where you grout and seal a lot of those tunnels to prevent water from coming in but water does still enter that.

MAIJA HECHT: Now Johnson says the company is focused on how to collect and treat that water to meet environmental quality standards.

JESSICA JOHNSON: Our team feels confident that we're creating a project designed to be protective of those resources, but we are at that point where it does need to be evaluated by others, by the regulatory agency's technical experts, and the public to really see if that is true.

MAIJA HECHT: The Minnesota DNR is using the public comments submitted last month and information put forth by Talon to define topics of study in the next stage of environmental review, called an environmental impact statement, or EIS. A few areas already identified are climate adaptation, contamination, and hazardous waste, and a wide range of socioeconomic impacts. Once an EIS is prepared, the public will have another opportunity to comment. The DNR told North Star Stories that this isn't likely to happen until 2028.

VIRGIL WINDS: We're not against critical mineral mining overall. What we are against is having it happen in such a water-rich environment that threatens, you know, the ecosystem.

MAIJA HECHT: The mine would operate 1.3 miles from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe's community. Chairman Virgil Winds spoke with North Star Stories about concerns for their shared watershed.

VIRGIL WINDS: You know, nickel sulfide mining really is an unproven science that really doesn't have any great track record anywhere in the world of being, you know, sustainable and safe. The importance of water is really that it sustains our food, our culture, our ceremonies, and our relationships with one another.

MAIJA HECHT: The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe has taken a formal stance against the mine, forming the initiative Water Over Nickel, one of the group's core tenets is metals recycling and questioning Talon Metals' necessity within the supply chain.

VIRGIL WINDS: When we think about critical minerals that we need, are we currently recycling them to the point where we're being effective? Are we doing enough in recycling these resources? Are we doing enough to make sure that the current resources outside of Tamarack are being used adequately?

MAIJA HECHT: Today, most mined nickel supplies the stainless steel industry. Metal demands for batteries manufacturing are also on the rise. In 2023, Talon Metals received $20.6 million in funding from the Department of Defense to accelerate and expand nickel mining for U.S. battery manufacturing and defense-related supply chains. The company also holds a supply agreement with Tesla for metals to manufacture electric car batteries. While demands continue rising, those living in the area are speaking up.

VIRGIL WINDS: What really is at risk here is families and communities and people, and most importantly, the water that sustains us all. And it's really scary to think that we're going to base it off of something that just isn't proven. This is way bigger than the Mille Lacs Band. It involves every person in Minnesota, and again, all the way down to the Gulf. Decisions that we make today could have forever effects.

MAIJA HECHT: The next official DNR public comment period on this issue will likely happen in 2028. This is Maija Hecht reporting for North Star Stories.

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BRITT AAMODT: Coming up, as the global need for metals grows, can the mining industry, environmental protectors, and sovereign nations coexist?

VICTOR PALOMINO: This is North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's community radio stations, with support from the State of Minnesota. Stay with us.

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VICTOR PALOMINO: You are listening to North Star Stories. I'm Victor Palomino.

BRITT AAMODT: And I'm Britt Aamodt. Minnesota is rich in natural resources and water. For millennia, sovereign Nations, including the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, have maintained their connection to these lands and waters and worked to protect them for future generations. To learn more about the connection between mining projects and cultural resources, we're joined by Kelly Applegate, a biologist and Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Commissioner of Natural Resources.

VICTOR PALOMINO: The band is part of the initiative Water Over Nickel, working with other organizations to protect Minnesota's natural resources and cultural sites from the potential impacts of nickel mining. Kelly, thanks so much for coming to North Star Stories.

KELLY APPLEGATE: Yes, I'm honored to be your guest.

VICTOR PALOMINO: On your perspective as a biologist, what are you more interested in? What's happening with the mine planning process?

KELLY APPLEGATE: This is one of the wettest areas in Minnesota. The wetlands that surround this proposed mining site, these are the same wetlands that recharge Minnesotans' drinking water. Our waters we recreate in, the waters that sustain our cultural resources as a tribal nation and members of the community and beyond, and the interconnectedness of all of that water. And the track history of nickel sulfide mining is not good.

VICTOR PALOMINO: I'm curious about wild rice and how is this going to impact the areas where it grows and that habitat.

KELLY APPLEGATE: This type of mining, copper nickel sulfide mining, is a direct threat to water, which is a component of our natural wild rice beds that occur in the area of the proposed mine. In our language, we call it manoomin or the good berry. It's a sacred staple food for us as Indigenous people of the Great Lakes region. It requires clean, flowing water to grow, and it's already under threat from climate change. In general, people know what wild rice is and that it grows out in its natural environment. What's maybe not as understood is the interconnectedness of the water, and there's never been an example of a clean nickel mine. Nickel has a consistent track record of harming water quality and the surrounding wildlife, both flora and fauna, the environment, the air, the land. It represents a significant risk to not just the Mille Lacs Band community and the community of Tamarack, but those interconnected watersheds that flow throughout the state, and when we think of nickel sulfide pollution connecting in those watersheds, we're talking like the big watersheds, like the Upper Duluth Water Complex, the Saint Croix Watershed, and the Mississippi River Watershed, and those connect in some big geographies. And pollution in the Mississippi could end up impacting waters all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. All of those, our watersheds right now are already experiencing climate change and discharges from industry and pollution on certain levels, and why would we consider polluting it even more, and especially with sulfide pollution, which once sulfide pollutions happens in water bodies, it's not we can't go back.

VICTOR PALOMINO: I think that you just touched into a very good point. That is that sometimes when we think about these issues, we try to put it in the specific parts. You know, it's like this is affecting this zone. This is affecting this region. This affecting these people. But what you're saying is true. It's like it's water. The water is running. The water is gonna not. It doesn't stay in one place. It just move to one place to another. And that you're saying is go to the Mississippi all the way down to the ocean. So I think this is a point that goes beyond it creates another set of mind about thinking about the problem. You know, it's like it involves all of us.

KELLY APPLEGATE: You know, we often forget how precious clean water is, and you know we expect when we wake up in the morning, you know, and we go make a cup of coffee and we fill our coffee pot with water. We just turn on the tap and out comes this this beautiful water that we're going to consume. But that water takes a journey, and through that journey, it can be present as precipitation that falls from clouds, and there we have potential pollutants coming from mining operate nickel sulfide mining operations. If there's any airborne pollution that could end up in in rainwater that travels through the systems, falling to the earth and ending up in groundwater, which we pull out through our wells, and which municipal water supplies gather from the landscape and pump out to our houses and the places we get that. So water takes a cyclic journey. It's always moving, and to realize the threat that nickel sulfide mining could have on that, people should really be aware of that. You know, this mining proposal, even though it's in the little town of Tamarack, way up in North Central Minnesota, the impacts could be far-reaching.

VICTOR PALOMINO: You mentioned the Water Over Nickel campaign, and there's a section there that talks about alternatives to mining. And could you explain a little bit about this idea?

KELLY APPLEGATE: The idea that nickel is the only solution to move away from fossil fuels, or to start to transfer our into a green economy, that's really becoming dated. We're seeing a lot more efforts in recycling and pulling. There's been talk about pulling already finished minerals back out of the landfills that we've filled for hundreds of years and then looking at the various technologies that are coming forward that do not require these amounts of precious metals. There's other chemical compositions of battery technologies that are coming out. Some of the lithium iron phosphate batteries, or what are known as LFP batteries, they use no nickel or cobalt, and recycling can reduce demand for new extraction. You know, we have an opportunity here to ask the critical questions today.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Thinking or the future generations, and like you're saying, you know, it's like we sometimes we're so immediate, and it's like, yeah, this is gonna create an economic gain, or maybe it's gonna help the region in the moment. But we seem like of what I'm hearing is like we need to stop and think about what are the repercussions to future generations of the decisions that we're making today.

KELLY APPLEGATE: In our Indigenous Anishinaabe values, we look at caring for this earth, for our future, for our future generations, and it's our responsibility to manage our resources in such a way so that we're protecting them for the future. You know, we want our grandchildren to enjoy the clean water that that we have when we turn on our taps and be able to go swimming and eat the fish and recreate. And for the Mille Lacs Band and others that live up in the Tamarack area to go out and enjoy harvesting wild rice or our manoomin, as we call it in our language, in a good way that we've done for hundreds of years, and that's simply what we're trying to protect: is our cultural ways, our way of life, our sacred water. We want to keep that clean, and that's really what this is all about.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Well, Kelly, thanks so much for sharing this perspective and for coming to North Star Stories.

KELLY APPLEGATE: Oh, you bet! It was my honor.

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BRITT AAMODT: The growing global demand for metals is putting Minnesota's mining industry in a competitive position. But what do these opportunities mean for the state, and how is the industry addressing environmental concerns and its relationship with all Minnesotans?

VICTOR PALOMINO: To explore these questions, we're joined by Julie C. Lucas, executive director of MiningMinnesota, a coalition of industry leaders advocating for safe and responsible mining in Minnesota. Well, Julie, thank you so much for coming to North Star Stories.

JULIE C LUCAS: Thanks for having me.

VICTOR PALOMINO: How is the state of mining here in Minnesota? And from your perspective, what are the biggest opportunities and challenges?

JULIE C LUCAS: With opportunities always come challenges, right? We have a lot going on in the iron industry, and I won't speak to that necessarily, even though I live on the Iron Range. But with the non-ferrous industry, we are seeing over the last decade increasing uses for copper, nickel, which we have here. The minerals are in the ground, but we also have huge lakes and rivers and wetlands, and so we have the opportunity, but we also have that challenge because these two natural resources, mineral and water, coexist in pretty much the same geographic area, and so that's where a lot of our tension comes from.

VICTOR PALOMINO: When people think about mining, that a lot of people go into that environmental question. It's like, okay, so what is going to happen with our waters? What is going to happen with environment? And one of the things with water is like you might be doing mining in one space, but it doesn't stay in one space. It just go many many different places. So, how is the industry tackling that?

JULIE C LUCAS: You know, I got into mining through water. So my background is water resources science. I was concerned about mining. I think people always should ask questions about mining because it's always occurring in some watershed. When you look at the Clean Water Act, it's only it only came out in 1972. It's not that long ago that is a as a nation and as people we said we don't want untreated sewage going into our lakes and rivers. We don't want pipes just discharging whatever. Our culture has changed so much, and so with that, mining has had to change, and not just because of regulations, but just a lot of the people within it have changed. You know who we are. We are a generation that has grown up with a Clean Water Act with a Clean Air Act. We don't expect anything less. So with that, we have the new technology that scientists and engineers have developed, you know, for you know reverse osmosis and just different just different treatment systems that we have. But we also have a culture of prevention because treating water, that's your last step, you know. Mining, along with everything else, we're evolving, and it's necessary because we just only have this one little earth, so we have to take care of it.

VICTOR PALOMINO: How is the industry relationship with our tribal nations?

JULIE C LUCAS: Yeah, and that's one area that I have been really excited to be a part of this industry in the last 20 plus years because this is one of the biggest things changing, and what you know when you look at Minnesota, all of Minnesota is ceded territory, right? So I'm driving on I-35 is ceded territory, but we don't have those conversations about those things on the land. But in mining, we get to, and so we get, you know, to be at the forefront of conversations that are massively overdue for our region and for our state. And when I look at our copper nickel projects, they have members of staff that their sole focus is how do we help this mining company figure this out. And there is no playbook, right? This is a challenge, nation or worldwide. You know, we look at Australia, you look at South America, like everywhere is this challenge. And so we get to have these engagements with the tribes that don't just build company tribal relationships, but they just build people relationships that are way overdue. And so it's tough because being human is tough, but it's necessary to have them, and it's fun to be getting to be a part of that.

VICTOR PALOMINO: On your website, you mentioned recycling for metals, but how that works, how we can think of recycling as part of the industry?

JULIE C LUCAS: So one of the things that I love being in this industry for is we have some of the smartest people, metallurgical folks who can figure out first how to take a rock and pull metals out of it. But then those same people are also typically really good at saying, "I have an alloy, right? I have a metal made of many metals that might be coated in plastic or rubber. How do I how do I get that off of there and get these metals separated out back into the supply chain?" Like copper is infinitely recyclable. You can electrowin it. You can get it back to being pure copper in a way that you can just whip it back into wires. You know, steel is one of the most recycled metals out there too. You know, nickel. All of these things can really be recycled well. You know, copper and nickel are just infrastructure metals. They're not, they're not gemstones, right? We just build society with these metals, so we know that demand is going to go up. Minnesota is doing a lot of work on that. The MPCA has had a Critical Materials Recycling Task Force. We know exploration. One in every 3000 sites that's explored actually becomes a mine because not everywhere is feasible to mine. So we we know how rare these deposits are. So keeping them in circulation and keeping things recycling is critical to our business model.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Well, Julie, anything else you want to add before we end?

JULIE C LUCAS: I think I would just encourage your listeners and everyone to just stay curious because we all we all are using these metals, and we have an opportunity here in Minnesota to learn from the professionals who provide those metals. And I think there's a just a cool opportunity for us to be more knowledgeable consumers.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Well, Julie, thank you so much for your time and for sharing this with our listeners.

JULIE C LUCAS: So thank you so much for your time.

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BRITT AAMODT: This is it for today's program. If you missed any part of today's newscast, you can find this and past episodes at AMPERS.org or listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also get North Star Stories Daily on our website or check your favorite station's schedule.

VICTOR PALOMINO: Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with more stories and voices from the North Star State.

OUTRO: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's community radio stations with support from the state of Minnesota. Online at ampers.org.