NewRange proposes major changes to copper mine plan

NewRange Copper Nickel, the company behind a controversial plan to dig an open pit mine for copper, nickel and other metals in northeast Minnesota that was first proposed more than 20 years ago, is back with a redesigned proposal it hopes will pass regulatory and legal muster.

NewRange, formerly known as PolyMet Mining, has submitted the changes to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to kick off a new round of environmental reviews, and the company filed a new application for a wetlands permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“This is not just paperwork,” said Colin Marsh, Director of External Affairs for NewRange, which is owned by a joint venture of the Swiss conglomerate Glencore and the giant Canadian mining firm Teck, which also controls another copper-nickel deposit nearby. “It represents meaningful updates at the NorthMet project.”

The project is located about six miles north of Hoyt Lakes, on the far eastern edge of the Iron Range at the site of an old taconite mine. NewRange seeks to dig copper, nickel and precious metals from the Duluth Complex, considered the largest untapped source of such metals in North America. It’s about 20 miles southwest of the Twin Metals project outside Ely.

Eight years ago, the proposal seemed poised to be Minnesota’s first ever copper-nickel mine, when state and federal agencies approved the key permits that the company needed to move forward. But since then, one of those permits was revoked, and two others are now in limbo, after environmental groups and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed lawsuits in an attempt to stop the mining project.

Boosters of copper-nickel mining believe it could provide a huge jolt to the economy of northeast Minnesota, creating hundreds of high-paying jobs and injecting billions of dollars of investment into a region where iron ore mining has supported the economy for over a century.

But it has yet to be proven that the kind of mining NewRange would do to extract the copper and nickel can be done safely in the state. The metals are found in ore that contains sulfide, which when exposed to air and water can lead to acid mine drainage and run off that can create serious water pollution in groundwater and nearby lakes and streams.

The changes NewRange unveiled this week address some of the aspects of the proposed mining plan that have gotten the most scrutiny, including how the company plans to store the massive amount of waste tailings the mine would generate.

The previous plan called for stacking those tailings on top of four square miles of old waste piles left behind from the former iron ore mine, and storing the tailings behind a giant earthen dam.

Now, NewRange is proposing to instead deposit its tailings in the old, abandoned iron ore mining pits that the company has acquired adjacent to its current site.

The new design also includes what NewRange calls a “closed-loop water management approach,” which the company said would reduce water discharge by 75 percent.

The company is also proposing to replace a 7-mile long rail line with a conveyor system to transport ore from the mine to the processing facility.

With those changes in place, NewRange said it would increase the amount of ore it processes every day, from 32,000 tons to 40,000 tons. That would in turn shorten the expected lifespan of the mine from 20 to 16 years.

“This takes a project, a good project, and updates it, enhances it, and makes it better,” said Marsh. “It’s a historic step in this project.”

But environmental groups that have fought the proposed mine for more than a decade dismissed the changes, which are outlined in a two-page document and press release.

“The risks of this proposal have not changed,” said Joy Anderson, Legal Director for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

Anderson said the mining project would still result in the destruction of about 1,000 acres of wetlands. And she said it would still result in long-term water pollution that would require water treatment at the site for hundreds of years after the mine closed.

Anderson is pleased NewRange ditched its original plan for storing waste tailings. But she said the company didn’t change course “out of the goodness of their hearts. But because groups like ours and others sued and said this does not comply with Minnesota law.”

Environmental groups believe NewRange should start from the beginning with its plan, and redo the entire environmental review process with state regulators. Instead, the company is proposing a shorter, “supplemental” environmental review.

“This is not the time for shortcuts,” said Paula Maccabee, Executive Director of Water Legacy. “This is time for a clean slate, a new process. These are all new owners. This is an all new proposal. Let’s require NewRange to do it right, and see what happens in the regulatory process.”

Minnesota DNR officials say they will take 30 days to decide what level of environmental review the project changes require, adding that they will conduct their own analysis of the proposal, rather than a joint state-federal review.

DNR Assistant Commissioner Jess Richards acknowledged that NewRange is proposing significant changes to its project. But he said it doesn’t mean everything about the project has changed.

“What we need to do is make sure that we are thoroughly looking at the potential impacts of the changes and then how they might affect any other previous analysis that we did,” said Richards.

“It’s not to imply at all that even if we order a supplemental environmental impact statement rather than say, as folks would argue, ‘starting at square one,’ it doesn’t mean that the outcome of any review wouldn’t be completely updated and thorough in its analysis.”

That environmental review would then inform subsequent decisions whether or not to issue permits to NewRange. Richards said the project would likely require new or amended permits. But he said the company has not yet submitted any new permit applications.

The federal government estimates about a year and a half long timeline to issue a decision on the wetlands permit. NewRange’s Marsh hopes for a state process that “doesn’t go too much past that.”

In 2023, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revoked the wetlands permit after the Environmental Protection Agency advised that the permit could not guarantee that the mine could meet the water quality standards of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, whose reservation lies downstream of the proposed mine on the St. Louis River.

Marsh said he’s optimistic that the project’s proposed changes will alleviate the concerns of the EPA and environmental critics.

Julie Lucas, Executive Director of the industry group Mining Minnesota, said the changes illustrate how the state’s mine approval process is supposed to work – “allowing science, engineering, and public input to refine a project as new information emerges.”