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We at the Reader have kept a close eye on the developments of sulfide mines in the area and the story continues. This Saturday, September 7, there will be musical performances held at the Rex as a celebration for a new collaboration CD that will be released to raise awareness of sulfide mining in the area. The CD opens with an introduction by Craig Minowa of Cloud Cult narrating over Native American chanting, “it is blue gold, with the gift of so much fresh water in this region, comes great responsibility. These waters are constantly under threat from a variety of human made pollutants…we are the keepers of 20% of the world’s surface fresh water,” says Minowa.

We agree that this area is unique and amazing and our bodies of water play a big part in that and so do a number of local musicians and artists. The Arrowhead Story’s first compilation album includes some great songs from local songwriters. Some go right out and condemn mining in the region in the album, while others are a little more subtle. The CD includes The Little Horse Drum Group, Charlie Parr with The Murder of Crows, Gallus, Lisa Kance, Kathy McTavish, Lee Jeffrey, Actual Wolf, Snobarn, Abe Curran, Charity Huot, Bird by Bird, Mark Blom, Jim Hall and Adam Sippola. The collection of songs is both powerful, beautiful, and thought provoking. It undeniably carries the character of true Northlanders.  

The show on Saturday will feature opening remarks, The Little Horse Drum Group, Snobarn, Ladyslipper Bellydance Troupe, The Boomchucks, Prince Paul & The Conscious Party and American Rebels as well as other guest appearances. We had a chance to talk to Ian Kimmer of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness who played a large part in organizing this CD and has continued to create awareness about the environmental dangers of sulfide mining. Later in this writing, we talk with a couple of local geologists about the unique layout of the mineral deposits in the area and what it might mean when mines eventually find their way into the area. The story of sulfide mines in the area is just beginning, but here’s some information that will give the reader a better understanding of some of the many variables that mines will bring to the area.

Reader: Hello again, Ian, it looks like we’re once again discussing sulfide mining, but this time there’s The Arrowhead Story. Explain a little bit about how this idea came to be.

Kimmer: The Arrowhead Story original started as a concept behind the album, which is now what we’re releasing on September 7th, “Industry, Peace, Envionment.” It was Eric Ament and I, we got together, we knew that the whole region had a really vibrant music and arts community and it only made sense that some of these folks would be interested in being involved in the dialog and cause around sulfide mining and the preservation of Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters.

It was early in 2012 when we really started to think about this and we started collecting songs from people and without our trying, it really gathered a lot of momentum and energy. We had an event at Beaner’s to record some stuff and the people who gave to that talked to their friends and before we knew it, we had around 20 different songs around the idea of creating an album to talk about sulfide mining and it’s relationship with this area. It wasn’t necessarily anti-mining, It was more that we’re at a critical crossroads, if we do this, it will change the landscape economically, culturally and otherwise. And if we don’t do it, we will continue down the path that we have been on, which is more of a younger, entrepreneurial, sustainable economy.

Last spring The Arrowhead Story was born because it became clear that there were a lot of artists in the region who wanted to talk about this issue. Whether it be that they don’t want it here, that we shouldn’t do sulfide mining in this region because of the pollution elements and problems of the mineral extraction economy or just their basic love of the region as it is, we had all these people coming to us telling us how they’d love to contribute to this cause.

Reader: I’ve listened to the album and it begins with Native American chanting, I’ve also noticed that towards Ashland way there is some concern about mining among Native American people. I know that Mike “Laughing Fox” Charette will be performing at the upcoming show. How have Native American groups joined in?

Kimmer: On the album there is the Little Horse Drum Group, which is headed by Terry Goodsky from Fond du Lac and they’re actually going to have a longer version of the chant song on the second album, a full version that’s just them. Michael Laughing Fox will be helping open the ceremony on September 7th as well. There’s a very big interest at least in the handful of artists that I’ve worked with in contributing to this. Really what we’re trying to do with

The Arrowhead Story is show the relationship of landscape to community and one of the things that is inherent to mineral extraction is that it has a colonizers or settlers mentality about landscape. We’re coming into a region, we see timber, we see minerals, let’s pull them out, sell them somewhere else and take the money. The basic idea inherent to that is that we’ll eventually likely leave. We’ll take the money and go somewhere else. The Native perspective is rooted in the idea of living here, this is home, this is where our grandchildren seven generations down the line will be born.

Reader: I noticed in the paper the other day that Polymet has met standards for an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) impact statement. Do you know anything about that?

Kimmer: What that was was a letter that the EPA sent to Polymet and other agencies saying the Polymet is cooperating well with EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) process. What this was is the EPA saying we’re grateful Polymet is working with us better now. But very important to that letter was that there was a whole list that they had about the project that do not meet regulatory standards. These include water, landscape use, wetland loss, wild rice issues. Some very core issues that have not been answered. It’s a little baffling why they’d say this unless you pay attention to all of the politics involved. They were basically saying this because Polymet failed miserably on their first EIS and they not only failed but didn’t do a good job with working with other agencies. Of course the EPA doesn’t say anything about the cultural or economic concerns. The economy of the boom and bust of mineral extraction; the EPA doesn’t touch that stuff, it’s not their business.

Reader: You just recently went down to Minneapolis and the State Fair and met with Al Franken? What seems to be the attitude among Minnesotan government right now?

Kimmer: It was Franken’s staff actually, I’ve talked with Franken in the past, he was there but we didn’t talk directly about this. It’s a little hard to pin down. Right now our Congressman, Rick Nolan, has done a lot of double speak, but if you look at the decisions he’s made, the public positions he’s taken, he’s for the mines being developed. Klobuchar is pretty pro-industry in this case. Franken has been a little more cautious with taking a firm position. The Governor has also been pro-industry.

Reader: One thing that they seem very interested in these days is the economy and jobs.

Kimmer: The key word in the last two election cycles has been jobs. And you can anticipate in the next election that this will be the case.

Reader: On the other hand there is not a never ending supply of this mineral up there. And this has already happened in the Iron Range.

Kimmer: There’s so many elements to the economy of mineral extraction that to me, apart from the environmental stuff, that tells us we shouldn’t go down this road. It’s undermining the basic economic infrastructure that this area has that’s not mining but rather the natural environment. The number one recruiting tool for the biggest employers in Minnesota, which is not mining, is their natural assets. The fact that you have Lake Superior, the Boundary Waters, woods and forests. Another big thing is that we’re in a steel and iron boom right now, yet our leaders or region are running around saying we’re desperate for jobs. If we’re at the peak of an industry, yet we’re desperate for jobs, then maybe there’s something wrong with relying on that industry for our jobs and economy. Right now you can go to Chishom, Minnesota, on top of one of the largest active iron mines in the world and half the store fronts on Main Street are boarded up. Mining economy, despite the messages that we get, never seems to equate to long term sustainable economic health. Find a mining town in America or in the world that is long term, sustainable and healthy.

Another thing why I think The Arrowhead Story is so important is that we’re not talking about one or two mines. There have been very public statements by elected officials on the top of our government who are advocating for a copper mining district that would be bigger than our Iron Range. It would start either in Boulder Lake just north of Duluth and run through the Boundary Waters or it would start all the way down in Aiken and go all the way up. There’s copper in that Duluth complex running that whole way and there are people advocating that new mining district that would completely change the landscape of Minnesota and impact Lake Superior and the Great Lakes region.

That water flows down hill from here. It would impact the Rainy River district which is all the water through the Boundary Waters flowing North and would potentially impact the Mississippi River water shed. It’s the crux of three water sheds, talking about bringing in a massive industry that has a 100% track record of substantial water pollution. There’s all of these different economic and other elements, but The Arrowhead Story is all about that this issue is so utterly huge that there’s no way to grasp it all in a couple of sound bites. The economy, our culture, we’re standing at the crossroads and if we choose to go forward with one or two of these projects, it will be really hard to say no to the rest of them.

The next Arrowhead Story CD after this first release is tentatively scheduled to be released next spring and will possibly have some Twin Cities artists on it. There is no lack of musicians in support of the cause and the issue is certainly not going away anytime soon. It seems possible that the region will be very different when and if these mines come in. One thing that is for sure, these companies didn’t invest millions and millions to not get what they want.
While it seems that mining in the region will certainly have a negative impact on the environment and it’s uncertain how sustainable the mines will be, we contacted a couple of individuals who have been working in the field of geology who are in no way connected to environmental groups or the companies seeking to put mines in to the area.

The first person we talked to is now a senior in the field of geology at UMD. Jeff Harrison took some time to talk to us about the size and uniqueness of the deposit of minerals that spread over a great part of the region. Harrison is in the belief that the mines won’t be utterly devastating to the area, but can be ran responsibly. Let’s hope he’s right. (Expect to Google some of the following terms if you are not familiar with geology.)
 
Reader: So sulfide mining on the Boundary Waters, why is it not as bad as it seems at face value?

Harrison: When looking at the dangers of sulfide mining, they look at the existing sulfide mines that we have running in the country. The existing sulfide mines that we have running in this country are porphyry sulfide deposits. A volcano pushes a lot of super heated water that is loaded with sulfur through a rock mass, the sulfur scavenges the copper as it’s going through the mass and then all of the sulfur whether it’s scavenged copper minerals or not, gets deposited into a big lens at the top of the formation.

They dig out that lens with all of that excess sulfur in it and that’s where they get their minerals from, the copper. The formation that we have up on the Iron Range here is actually a layered mafic intrusion. This was formed by flood basalts. What happened in laymen’s terms is the the continent split in half, Minnesota and Wisconsin tried to break up with each other and tried to form a new ocean where we’re at right here.

Reader: This is before the Packers and the Vikings?

Harrison: Yes, way before the Packer and the Vikings. What that did was drop about 10 to 15 miles of basalt on this area. That formed a big wedge. (Basalt is a silica crust that has more in common with ocean floor crust than continental crust.)

Reader: Explain to me a little more about the sandstone and other things that might be protecting this deposit.

Harrison: So this entire area was old mountains.  If you go past the North Shore volcanics group and the failed rift here you have two and half billion year old continental crust. There’s all of these chunks of crust that gradually clumped together to form North America. There’s a huge chunk that goes from here all the way through Canada that got pushed up and worn down and there was a layer of sandstone that used to be oceans some two billion years ago. In those shallow oceans, when they started getting the blue-green algae, it oxygenated the oceans, then the iron and everything precipitated out and formed a layer of mineralization which is the Iron Range and that’s what we’ve been digging through for the last 100 years. When all of this basalt pushed up on top of that, you’ve got this huge layer of basalt sitting on top of that layer of sandstone and the precipitated mineral deposits. The mineral deposits have sulfur in it. The heat allowed that sulfur to actually migrate up through this huge layer of basalt. The layer of basalt was thick enough where it didn’t cool all at once, it continued to move around and separate which caused layered mafic intrusion. What it is like is pancakes on top of each other and the minerals segregate, the lighter minerals float to the top and the heavier minerals sink to the bottom and it actually cools from both sides towards the middle.

Reader: So why is this type of mining safer in this area?

Harrison: The sulfur that got scavenged from below floated up in this formation. They’re light and float unless if they come into contact with a heavy mineral they can easily attach to like something like iron, nickel, copper or gold. The thing is, unlike a porphyry deposit where you have an excess of sulfur and all of the sulfur whether it scavenges in this lens that they mine, here only the sulfur that actually attached to something valuable sank down in to this layer of mineralization.
Reader: But wouldn’t they be going for that then?

Harrison: They would be going for that and there is sulfur in it. But not nearly as much sulfur as normal copper mines.

Reader: Ok, so to your understanding how would you protect against having sulfuric materials leak out into the water shed and into Lake Superior?

Harrison: There already are considerable amounts of sulfur in that water shed just from the fact that it’s in contact with the minerals that are already there.

Reader: Umm…I’m still a little worried about the behaviors of these companies. You might be aware that Polymet is backed by Glencore and they hired on Tony Hayward who is somewhat responsible for Deepwater Horizon.

Harrison: You really can’t blame them for being a massive corporation. With the way mining works in the United States, you propose a project and you get sued by everyone around you to try to block that project. The end result is that the only way you can get that through is to have a massive corporation that can afford to be sued by everyone in town before they can actually go ahead.

Reader: In the end there is only a finite amount of these minerals, what happens after a couple of generations?

Harrison: The finite amount of material up in this area is actually the third known largest deposit of copper and nickel on the planet. By some estimates it may take 100 years to get through what we know is there.

Reader: Do you really feel that this can be carried on responsibly?

Harrison: I think it can be carried on responsibly, we are in the United States and we do have considerable amounts of regulation on the way we do things. They actually need to have a bankruptcy proof fund in place for clean up of the project. Even if the company that started the project goes belly up, the fund to clean it up is there and cannot be touched.

Reader: Interesting. Is there anything else you’d like to share before I wind this up?

Harrison: Actually I have one more wonderful thing. The irony of blocking this project is that there is a massive mine called Norilsk in Northern Russia that actually produces most of the metals that this mine will be competing against that is the largest producer of sulfide pollution in the entire Northern Hemisphere. They are responsible for almost half.

Reader: Everything you’ve just explained to me is different there?

Harrison: Yes, they have no regulation. They just burn the stuff off straight up the chimney. They don’t make any attempts to prevent pollution. The area around that area is so polluted with heavy metals that the top soil can now be mined.

Reader: Jesus f***ing Christ.

Harrison: Yeah, look that one up.

Since Harrison has not graduated yet, we decided to ask another geologist named Aaron Magnuson from Ely, MN what he thought about the area where he has been actively working in his profession for the last four years. He responded to our message, “I love North Eastern Minnesota very much and am an avid hunter and fisherman. We’ll start at the beginning. What we are seeking is copper, nickel and platinum group metals (PGMs; platinum, palladium, gold, silver...) these metals are held in sulfide minerals (CuxNixFexSxOx) because they’d much rather hang out with sulfur than silicates. And found them we have, currently our estimates are over 24 billion pounds of copper in just part of one of our deposits which makes this a truly world class deposit, as a matter of fact we stopped looking for the edges of it. Our deposit alone could be mined for 80-100 years.
The concern is that sulfur, plus water, plus oxygen can create sulfuric acid and the metals in the rocks, if not extracted fully, can leach out as well. That is bad news. This chemistry is pretty simple and well understood so that if you can cut out one of the three ingredients, you can avoid trouble. I will freely admit that this type of mining has a bad track record, but we have to be careful how we interpret that history. 90% or more of all mines of this type that opened in the US were pre-EPA, all of them had a higher sulfur content than the deposits in Northern Minnesota. Is there risk? as with all things, yes. But there are a lot of really dedicated people working to minimize that risk, industry and regulators alike.”

In the end, what is most important is that if mining is carried out, it is carried out responsibly. As Minowa states at the beginning of the compilation album, we carry a huge responsibility in making sure that this area stays as pristine as we can keep it for as long as we can. Clean and fresh water is a commodity that is very easy to take for granted. We must never look at our area like it owes us. We owe it all of the care and thought out processes to live here for decades and perhaps centuries to come.