Group calls for comprehensive water study, action against Glencore

In a sharply worded six-page letter to the office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson and others asked:

“Why is the Walz Administration putting the BWCA and Lake Superior at risk doing business with Glencore?”

Carlson, who served as Governor from 1991 to 1999, wrote that data from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency noted that in 2019, 56 percent of the state’s rivers, streams and lakes were declared “impaired” and that in 2021 another 305 bodies of water were added to that list. “This is a most serious warning,” Carlson wrote, “because it places human and wildlife in danger and clearly informs us that our supply of drinkable water is diminishing.”

In the letter, the group referenced a University of Minnesota finding that water demand in Minnesota is exceeding supply and that the state needed “to reduce water consumption by 25 percent over the next 35 years.”

In calling for a comprehensive water study, the Carlson group found fault with the current system that “largely depends on local units of government to supply and protect their waters and a defused system on the state level with the result that no one agency is in charge.”

The majority of the letter to Governor Walz centers on foreign mining giant Glencore, parent company of Polymet Mining which has applied for mining permits near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in northeast Minnesota. Carlson noted the warnings of former Vice President Walter Mondale who emphatically declared that “sulfide mining has never – never – been undertaken without serious environmental consequences.”

Regarding Glencore, Carlson called the company “one of the world’s most corrupt enterprises” noting it has repeatedly pled guilty to bribery of public officials across the world, paying over $2 billion in fines within the past year. “Despite Glencore’s lengthy international rap sheet,” Carlson wrote, the Walz administration “is entrusting them with the BWCAW and Lake Superior, leaving our most obvious question unanswered: Why is the State of Minnesota partnering with a corrupt entity?” Carlson added, “This may be a sensitive topic, but the public’s best interests are not being protected.”

Later in the letter, the Carlson group proposed a series of actions Governor Walz and state leaders should take that would hold to the standard promised by Walz with reference to precious metal mining in northern Minnesota. Walz had said that “the only way this gets built is if it gets built right.”

Among the recommended actions proposed by the Carlson group:

•A temporary moratorium on the mining permitting process until new laws are enacted

•Treating the New Range Copper Nickel venture largely owned and directed by Glencore as one entity and not a continuation of the PolyMet project.

•Studying the impact of residue discharges on the waters of the BWCAW and Lake Superior

•Conducting a Water Study that would estimate current supplies of healthy water to match future supply against demand.

•Initiate a comprehensive study on the impact of all proposed mining operations under consideration in northern Minnesota, including those in the area of the Iron Range, Bemidji, Brainerd and Detroit Lakes where the economy of the region is impacted and largely dependent on tourism and vacation spending.

•Launch a legislative review of the state’s current campaign disclosure laws to create a transparent system that fully protects the public from unscrupulous behavior and is never compromised by undue corporate influence.

The letter was signed by:

Arne Carlson, Governor 1991 – 1999; Tom Berkelman, Minnesota Representative 1977 – 1983; Janet Entzel, Minnesota Representative 1975 – 1984; and Duke Skorich, President, Zenith Research Group, Inc.