Better In Our Back Yard adamantly disagrees with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recommendation on PolyMet’s Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 404 permit.
We believe the CWA Section 404 permit should be reinstated as soon as possible.
PolyMet earned its permits by following the process. The company completed a nearly 20 year environmental review, concluding with a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) published by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service in 2015. The EPA didn’t raise objections back then. Why now, when there has been no new evidence presented to suggest that the NorthMet project will violate any state, federal or tribal water quality requirements?
Better in Our Back Yard trusts the scientific review the agencies used for the FEIS. We also trust that PolyMet’s water treatment plan will address legacy mining issues and reduce both sulfate and mercury in the St. Louis River. This project will mean cleaner water and a step toward accessing the minerals we need for clean energy infrastructure in a region that has been left behind economically. The benefits keep stacking up, but we’ll only see them if we follow the process and allow the project to move forward.