Emily residents voice skepticism about mining manganese

Residents filled a gymnasium at the Emily City Hall Tuesday night to hear more about a potential underground mine in their community.

The small city surrounded by lakes in northern Crow Wing County, northeast of Brainerd, sits on what’s been described as the largest deposit of manganese in North America.

The mineral is an important component of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, buses and power tools. But the prospect of an underground mine less than 2 miles from downtown Emily has many local residents worried.

At the town hall meeting, they peppered representatives of North Star Manganese and parent company Electric Metals with questions about the mine’s potential impacts on their quiet lake-dotted community of lakes and cabins.

“The problem from our side is I actually wish we had better answers at this point,” said North Star founder Rick Sandri. “But we need to do a lot more studies to be able to do that.”

The company still has a lot of work to do before even deciding whether to apply for a mining permit, Sandri said. First, it has to collect reams of baseline environmental data and complete feasibility studies before it develops a mining plan to submit to state regulators.

The company believes there’s enough material at the Emily site to mine about 1,000 tons a day for more than 20 years. The manganese ore would be transported to a plant outside of Minnesota to be processed into battery chemicals, Sandri said.

The company has already spent about $10 million to $12 million exploring the site, Sandri said. A preliminary economic assessment the company released last August indicated that the project is worth continuing.

“It’s not a decision to proceed toward an actual mining project,” Sandri said. “It basically tells us, ‘Yes, break out your wallets, keep spending, keep looking at what you’re doing and advance your knowledge base.’”

Long history

The Emily deposit is on the northern end of the Cuyuna Range, which was mined for iron ore until the early 1980s.

U.S. Steel developed plans to dig an open pit to mine the iron ore and manganese in and around Emily in the 1950s but declined to pursue it.

Crow Wing Power, a Brainerd-based electric cooperative, purchased some of the land and mineral rights in the manganese deposit in 2008. A subsidiary spent more than $20 million on a failed technique to shoot water under high pressure into the earth to break up the manganese and then pump it to the surface.

North Star Manganese has been exploring the site since 2020, drilling holes hundreds of feet below the surface and mapping the mineral deposit.

The company would use a more traditional method of blasting the underground rock with explosives, Sandri said.

If the company does apply for a mining permit, it would take years to go through the environmental review and permitting process, said Joe Henderson, director of the lands and minerals division of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

‘Promises were made’

Many residents at Tuesday’s town hall expressed concerns about the potential impact on water, air and traffic, as well as their community’s quiet, scenic nature and economy centered on recreation and tourism.

“No matter how they package it, I would not be for it,” said Mark Rossi, who lives on nearby Ruth Lake. “It’s too close. I mean, we’re a tourist destination, and it would change the whole fabric of what we have up here.”

One of local residents’ concerns is whether mining could increase the levels of manganese in drinking water, where it occurs naturally. Manganese is a potential neurotoxin, and elevated levels can cause serious health impacts, especially in children.

Gary Hanson, a longtime Emily City Council member, said Crow Wing Power didn’t fulfill past pledges it made to test residents’ wells for manganese.

“A lot of promises were made,” Hanson said. “None materialized.”

Several residents said they appreciated the company representatives’ effort to attend the meeting and answer their questions, but wished for more detailed information.

Sandri said he understands people’s questions and skepticism, which he said are common whenever a new mine is proposed. He said the company wants to be transparent and publicly share the information it collects while studying the site.