Buried Treasure

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BY THE TIME BILLIE and Mike Rouse arrived in Babbitt in the early 1990s, the town was a shell of its old self. Built to house workers for Reserve Mining's huge taconite pit in the late 1950s, Babbitt was transformed by the company's closure three decades later into a crumbling hamlet bereft of hope and jobs—an outpost for retirees. The Rouses, who own a motel that has been partially rented out for months by drillers working in the nearby forest, hope that new mines could bring prosperity back to the town.

"There'd be younger people with children moving in," Mike Rouse says. "That's what people's memory of the mine is: a town full of life and children."

The Rouses live just north of Babbitt, on the western shore of Birch Lake. Close to the southern edge of the Boundary Waters, the lake is serenaded by loons and has a bountiful supply of walleye. But with three companies drilling scores of core samples within spitting distance of the eastern shore, it has also become ground zero for sulfide prospecting in Minnesota.

While Duluth Metals, Franconia, and upstart Encampment Minerals all plan underground mines, which would chop down less forest and unearth smaller quantities of sulfuric waste rock than would PolyMet's open pit a few miles to the south, Billie Rouse worries about the potential for acid mine drainage.

"Lots of promises are made that nothing will ever happen to the water," she says. "I'm a person that doesn't believe in never. I want to know what the plan is in case something goes wrong."

There's reason for concern. In 2006, the environmental group Earthworks released a sobering report finding that though mining companies uniformly predict full compliance with regulators, 76 percent of the 183 mines studied wound up leaching toxic contaminants in excess of the established water quality standards.

One of the worst cases was the Summitville mine in the high desert of southern Colorado. When Galactic Mining Limited bought the long-abandoned gold mine in 1984, it promised 400 well-paying jobs and nearly a million dollars in annual tax revenues.

But in 1991, tens of thousands of gallons of water contaminated with cyanide, sulfuric acid, and heavy metals seeped into the Alamosa River. The toxic stew killed all the fish 17 miles downstream. Where the river was used to irrigate crops, the acidic water rusted out farm machinery. After Galactic abandoned the mine the next year, the EPA declared Summitville a Superfund site.

In addition to a dead river and vanished jobs, Galactic also left behind a huge unpaid bill. While the company's owner coughed up $32 million after a fierce court battle, the actual cost of the cleanup has reached $185 million and counting.

The companies interested in the Duluth Complex are quick to distance themselves from Galactic. The rock in the Colorado mine had more sulfur in it, they point out, and there are no plans to use cyanide to extract minerals here. Moreover, they add, they will be held to strict scrutiny by state regulators on how they deal with their waste rock. First they will have to separate it by level of toxicity. Then they'll be required to safely treat and store it. In addition, they note, the state will require them to post a bond covering anticipated restoration costs.

"We have a chance to mine here in a state that cares about the environment as opposed to somewhere it might be done with less restrictions," says Frank Ongaro, president of MiningMinnesota, a sulfide mining industry group.

But the proposed Minnesota mines share enough in common with Summitville and other disaster sites to concern skeptics. Like Galactic, local mining companies intend to store their acidic waste rock on plastic liners. Though PolyMet envisions covering some of the crumbled rock with soil and planted trees, that wouldn't stop most rainwater from seeping through. A key issue before regulators is whether to permit plans requiring costly water treatment plants to run in perpetuity—an outcome that industry, government, and environmentalists all hope to avoid.

"Perpetual treatment is a risky proposition," says the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy Policy's Brimmer. "Most corporations don't like bills that go on forever."

To Billie Rouse, it's less a question of taxpayer money than what kind of world will be left to future generations. Her beloved Birch Lake is four miles upstream from one of the world's great environmental treasures. "There will not be another Boundary Waters," she says. "You may create a mall or a mine, but you will never create a Boundary Waters again."