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Proposed NewRange copper-nickel mine suffers fresh setback
Administrative Law Judge James LaFave said in a ruling late Tuesday that the design for the mine’s waste basin won’t adequately prevent water pollution.
MINNEAPOLIS — The proposed NewRange Copper Nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota suffered a fresh setback this week when an administrative law judge recommended that state regulators should not reissue a crucial permit for the long-delayed project.
Administrative Law Judge James LaFave said in a ruling late Tuesday that the design for the mine’s waste basin won’t adequately prevent water pollution. So, he said, the Department of Natural Resources should not reissue the main “permit to mine” for the project.
The next step is up to the DNR, which can accept or reject the judge’s recommendations or impose new conditions for reissuing the permit.
The proposed $1 billion mine has been delayed by a string of court rulings and administrative actions since regulators issued the original permit to mine and other necessary permits in 2018 and 2019. The Minnesota Supreme Court in 2021 ordered the DNR to gather more evidence on whether the mine’s waste basin would keep pollution contained, which led to a five-day hearing before the judge in March.
The project’s proposed open-pit mine near Babbitt and processing plant near Hoyt Lakes is a a 50-50 joint venture between PolyMet Mining and Canada-based Teck Resources. The project was renamed NewRange Copper Nickel in February but is still widely known as PolyMet. It seeks to be Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine, but it has long been stalled by court and regulatory setbacks. Swiss commodities giant Glencore in recent months upped its stake to become the sole owner of PolyMet Mining.
“It’s time for the Governor as well as Minnesota’s state agencies to take a hard look at whether it is time to pull the plug on the PolyMet mine project.” Paula Maccabee, an attorney for the environmental group WaterLegacy, said in a statement.
NewRange spokesman Bruce Richardson said Wednesday that the company was “reviewing the ruling and evaluating our options.” The company says it can produce copper, nickel and platinum-group metals needed for the clean energy economy without harming the environment while creating jobs for northeastern Minnesota.
Other environmental groups also welcomed the ruling. They say the risks of acid mine drainage from the sulfide-bearing ore under northeastern Minnesota pose unacceptable risks to the environment and human health.
The issue in this case was whether the bentonite clay liner that NewRange plans to use to seal its waste basin would adequately contain the reactive mine waste, known as tailings, and keep oxygen and water out. The judge concluded that it was not a “practical and workable” way to render the tailings nonreactive or to keep water out of them over time.
“The crux of the issue is simple: Will the method to contain the waste work? The evidence is clear, and the judge’s ruling is clear: No,” said Chris Knopf, executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness.
Several other major obstacles to the project also remain unresolved. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in August that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency improperly granted the main water quality permit, saying state regulators not only ignored concerns from the federal Environmental Protection Agency but attempted to conceal EPA warnings from the public. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in June revoked a wetlands destruction permit, saying it did not comply with water quality standards set by a sovereign downstream tribe. Also in June, the state Supreme Court reinstated an appeal by environmentalists of the project’s air quality permit.
“This is yet another repudiation of the permits issued to PolyMet, and should be the final nail in the coffin of this failed proposal,” said Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
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The crash happened when a Suburban pulling a trailer failed to stop at a stop sign, Minnesota State Patrol said.
WAUKENABO, Minn. — Two people from Minnetonka died in a crash Friday in Aitkin County while others, including children, were hurt.
According to Minnesota State Patrol, it happened at the intersection of Highway 169 and Grove Street/County Road 3 in Waukenabo Township at approximately 5:15 p.m.
A Suburban pulling a trailer was driving east on County Road 3 but did not stop at the stop sign at Highway 169, authorities said. The vehicle was struck by a northbound GMC Yukon. Two other vehicles were struck in the crash, but the people in those two cars were not injured.
In the Suburban, the driver sustained life-threatening injuries, according to State Patrol. Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, of Minnetonka, and Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, of Minnetonka, both died. Officials said the driver of the vehicle, a 61-year-old from Minnetonka, has life-threatening injuries.
There were six people in the Yukon when the crash occurred. The 44-year-old driver, as well as passengers ages 18, 14, and 11, sustained what officials described as life-threatening injuries. The other two passengers have non-life-threatening injuries.
Alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash, but officials said Elizabeth Jane Baldwin had not been wearing a seatbelt.
Among those at the start line this year will be Alex Vigil.
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Pixar’s second installment of the movie features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” universe plays out inside the mind of the movie’s adolescent protagonist, Riley.
She plays a kid from Minnesota whose family uproots her life by moving to San Francisco. But did you know that what plays out in Riley’s mind actually comes from the mind of a real-life Minnesotan?
“You are one of us!” said Breaking the News anchor Jana Shortal.
“Yes, I am!” said Burnsville native and the movie’s creator and director, Kelsey Mann.
Mann was chosen for the role by ANOTHER Minnesotan — Pete Docter, the man behind the original movie, “Inside Out.”
“I don’t know if Pete asked me to do this movie because I was from Minnesota and he was from Minnesota … I just think it worked out that way,” Mann said.
How two guys from the south metro made a pair of Pixar movies that would change the game is a hell of a story that began with Docter in 2015.
“He [Docter] was just trying to tell a fun story — an emotional, fun story — and didn’t realize how much it would help give kids a vocabulary to talk about things they were feeling because they are feeling those emotions, but they’re really hard to talk about,” Mann said.
Some parents, counselors and teachers might even tell you it did more good for kids than just entertain them. It unlocked their emotions and begged for what Mann set out to create at the beginning of 2020.
“That part was fun, particularly fun,” he said. “I think the daunting part was following up a film that everyone really loved.”
But Mann knew what he wanted to do with the movie’s follow-up, “Inside Out 2.”
“Diving into Riley’s adolescence … that was just fun,” he said.
This time around, Riley is 13, hitting puberty and facing all of what, and who, comes with it. The franchise’s second installment features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
“I think that’s what’s fun about the ‘Inside Out’ world: You can take something we all know and give it a face,” Mann said. “We can give anxiety a name and a face.”
The film follows Riley’s emotions fighting it out for control of her life. Joy wants Riley to stay young and hold on only to joy, while anxiety is hell-bent on taking over Riley over at the age of 13 because as a lot of us know, that’s when anxiety often moves in.
“I always pitched it as a takeover movie, like an emotional takeover,” Mann said. “Anxiety can kind of feel like that; it can take over and kind of shove your other emotions to the side and repress them.”
For a kids’ movie, it’s hard to watch this animation play out, even when an adult has the keys to decide.
“I’m making a movie about anxiety and I still have to remind myself to have my anxiety take a seat,” Mann said.
All of our individual anxieties have a place in this world.
“The whole movie honestly is about acceptance. Both acceptance of anxiety being there and also of your own flaws,” said Mann.
Even for our kids, we have to remember that this is life.
Anxiety will come for them; it does for us all.
The “Inside Out” world just shows them it’s so.
