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Clean Water AND Jobs
Ely, Minnesota has been an environmental battlefield for decades. Ely was founded as an iron mining town, and a century later, conflicts today focus on mining.
The conflict came to a head recently at a meeting of the St. Louis County board of commissioners in Ely. Commissioners were hearing testimony about a proposed resolution in support of nonferrous mining in the County. The commissioner chairing the meeting asked the people testifying to state whether they wanted clean water or jobs.
Clean water OR jobs? The commissioner’s request was doomed from the beginning. Whether it was a fourth-generation miner or a hardcore environmentalist, almost everyone who came to the podium essentially said, “Both.”
Out in the parking lot, dozens of people gathered waiting in the cold wind for a chance to get inside. Some amazing conversations developed, respectful and friendly dialogue between people on opposite sides of the issue. After some heated moments of tossing bullet points at each other, most of these conversations ended in agreement. If the mining was going to happen, it has to be done right. The environment must be protected. Jobs AND clean water, not one or the other.
The resolution that passed had new wording in it. It was now in support of strong environmental review, not just in support of mining. Even the county commissioners had come around to that same point. It’s not jobs OR clean water, it’s both.
Minnesota does have strong environmental regulations in place. These regulations have been under pressure. Water quality standards related to wild rice have been threatened in the state legislature. Minnesota’s strong clean air and energy standards were severely challenged this year in an effort to allow more dirty coal burning.
While everyone agreed on the importance of “doing it right,” the big question hanging in the air in Ely was how to ensure that it’s done right. Minnesota has strong environmental regulations, and mining supporters including corporate executives said that the mining companies would “meet or exceed” these environmental standards. Corporations do not meet environmental standards because they want to, they do so because, by law, they have to.
It was clear from this meeting that northern Minnesota wants to have jobs AND clean water. The only way to have jobs AND clean water is to keep these strong environmental standards are in place.
Andrew Slade is Northeast Programs Coordinator for the Minnesota Environmental Partnership
Posted in Economic Development | Related Topics: Environment Lakes & Rivers Job Growth Rural Minnesota
1 Comment
Ginny says:
January 5, 2012 at 11:14 am
Many of those jobs depend on the tourism industry. The BWCA has become a major destination for canoists and hikers, and its continued sustainability depends on clean water and air. This is a beautiful, unique country, and it needs to be protected. I am not convinced the kind of mining that the companies have in mind CAN keep this area clean and free of toxic chemical and other pollutants.
Protection of this area comes first. Once it’s lost, it’s lost. Jobs are temporal; once all the ore is gone, so are the workers. But the BWCA if protected goes on and on—or so we all hope.
I’m so happy to read this about Ely. It did its best to stop declaring this a wilderness area 30 or more years ago. Now this city seems to have realized what a treasure is on its doorstep. Sig Olson, a revered environmentalist and teacher, said this:
“We live in a finite world. There’s only so much oil, only so much gas, only so much coal. And there’s only so much time. In a century likely to be defined by limits, redirecting our seemingly infinite desires is the major challenge. If we succeed, it will be because during this century we took seriously the spiritual journey, and listened again to ancient wisdom—not out of fear, not out of superstition, but out of understand-
ing, desire, and joy.”
His books are very worth reading; try Singing Wilderness if you have read nothing of his works.