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Minntac Eyes St. Louis River: MINING:Under a Revised Plan, the U.S. Steel Operation Would Dump Tailings Water into the St. Louis River.

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By John Myers, Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.

Mar. 22--Officials of U.S. Steel'sMinntac operations are drafting a plan to pump 7.2 million gallons of water every day out of its taconite tailings basin into the St. Louis River.

Minntac has decided the St. Louis River is a better option than the Dark River, a trout stream that was the company's original choice, or the Sandy River, which would have sent the excess water into Lake Vermilion.

The company revealed its decision to local groups and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in recent weeks, said John Armstrong, spokesman for U.S. Steel.

It expects to submit the plan to the state as a draft permit application in June or July.

"We don't have anything formal from them yet, but that's the way they are leaning at this point," said Jeff Udd of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's industrial permitting office in Duluth.

But the St. Louis River option is far from a done deal and has opponents. The plan faces several public hearings and must be approved by the MPCA staff and citizens board.

Minntac has been asking to let more water out of its tailings basin for years. The plant uses about 250,000 gallons of water every minute to make taconite -- separating ore from rock, cleaning air pollution scrubbers, then moving waste rock into the tailings basin. The giant storage basin is ringed by more than nine miles of dikes and can hold 18 billion gallons of water.

For 30 years, Minntac has recycled much of that water back through the plant. But the repeatedly recycled water is becoming choked with solids and corrosive chlorides. Using cloudy water to make pellets can affect quality and foul plant equipment, the company says.

The basin isn't in danger of overflowing, but company officials say discharging more water -- 7.2 million gallons a day, or 2.6 billion gallons per year -- would extend the basin's life.

Besides containing sediment, chlorides and sulfates, the water's sheer volume makes it an issue no matter where the company looks for an outlet.

The PCA finished its Environmental Impact Statement on the issue in September but didn't decide which direction the excess water should flow. Public comments criticized the Dark River and Sandy River options because of increased water flow, higher temperature, sediments, sulfates and possibly mercury that could affect fish, wild rice and people.

The company's new, preferred option would send the water south, into the West Two Rivers Reservoir system, which flows into the St. Louis River and, eventually, into Lake Superior.

"That's the direction the EIS essentially pushed them, the option with the least environmental impact," Udd said. "Of course, that doesn't mean there's no environmental impact."

The PCA could decide to do nothing, allowing no additional diversion out of the Minntac tailings basin. Another option would be to require a treatment plant to clean the water before it's released. Only one other Minnesota taconite plant, Northshore Mining in Silver Bay, is required to treat water that leaves its tailings basin.

Sulfates are considered a possible human health issue because they can trigger mercury in the streams to become toxic. That mercury, called methyl mercury, can build up in fish and in people who eat fish.

Environmental groups are expected to oppose the discharge south because the St. Louis River is the largest U.S. tributary to Lake Superior, which has stringent mercury emission limits.

But company officials say they can meet those limits because tests show taconite tailings effectively bind mercury and take it out of the water. The company also is testing a reverse osmosis treatment system for water going into the tailings basin in an effort to remove sulfates before they become an issue, said Scott Vagle, a Minntac environmental manager.

"The mercury discharge will be below the Great Lakes standard of 1.3" parts per trillion, Vagle said.

About 4 million gallons of Minntac water seeps out of the tailings basin each day, allowed under a current permit. Most of that flows north. The revised PCA permit would allow the company to make a direct discharge into a river.

A public meeting onMinntac's plans are expected April 20 in Virginia. PCA staff is expected to make a decision on the permit by November when more public hearings will be held before any staff decision goes to the PCA citizens board for a final vote, probably in about a year.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.

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Source: Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth, Minn.)

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