Minnesota Public Radio covers risks of sulfide mining

A Minnesota Public Radio story that aired this morning discussed the many risks associated with potential sulfide mining in Minnesota. The report covered issues ranging from the potential for mercury pollution to the industry’s track record of broken promises and unpredicted problems:

Mining opponents, like Betsy Daub with the group Friends of the Boundary Waters, worry about sulfide mining’s track record in western states.

“What we haven’t yet seen is the mining companies – the industry – be able to hold up some shining star examples of sulfide mining where we haven’t seen really horrifying pollution problems,” Daub said.

Daub sites a 2006 study, co-written by Butte, Montana-based mining consultant Jim Kuipers. Kuipers studied two dozen projects, comparing what they said would happen with pollutants with what actually happened.

“In nearly every case where we had mines in close proximity to surface water and ground water, we saw that there was almost a 90 percent, if not greater, probability that the predicted water quality wasn’t actually what we saw,” Kuipers said.

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