Tribes, health officials, Chamber of Commerce weigh in on PolyMet
The nearly 50,000 comments the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has collected on the PolyMet copper-nickel mining proposal include e-mails, hand-written letters and postcards, and even full research reports containing hundreds of pages of graphs and data analysis.
The DNR is categorizing the comments by topic, and all the new pieces of information or questions pertaining to the draft environmental impact statement will get a response in the final EIS.
More: Copper-nickel mining stories, photos and video
The DNR's Steve Colvin said he has no idea how long it will take to edit and publish a final version of the study.
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"We really need to read through the comments and understand what the next steps are going to be for some of these analyses and rework on the EIS before we'll have a good sense of timeframe," he said.
The Environmental Protection Agency as well as several tribes and advocacy groups have sent in their comments. MPR News has received some of those comments and links to them are provided below.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• Minnesota Chamber of Commerce
• Fond Du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
• Minnesota Department of Health
• Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness
• U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, who represents the district where PolyMet wants to mine
• Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
• Grand Portage Band of Chippewa
• Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission