Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Media Contact: Anne Perry Moore, (218) 723-2356 Technical Contact: John Elling, (651) 282-9885 Toll free (all staff, voice and TTY): (800) 657-3864 Duluth, Minn.-- The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) seeks public comment on U.S. Steel-Minntac's proposed tailings basin wastewater discharge expansion plan for its Mountain Iron taconite-processing facility. A public meeting will be held April 27 to discuss the proposal and take comments. The MPCA prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), an extensive environmental review, which describes how the facility would continue to use the basin for tailings disposal, discharge wastewater at a higher rate, and siphon tailings basin discharge water to one or two nearby watersheds. Agency staff will discuss the Draft EIS at the Mesabi Range Community and Technical College, 1001 Chestnut Street West, Virginia, Minnesota from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. and take questions during the meeting. Written comments must be submitted in writing by May 25, 2005. U.S. Steel-Minntac mines and processes taconite at the Mountain Iron facility. Water used in ore processing is discharged to a tailings storage and disposal basin north of the facility. The facility's permit allows basin discharge water to either be recycled back to the processing plant or allowed to seep into the Dark River and Sandy River watersheds. The proposal reviewed in the Draft EIS incorporates an engineered siphon system which would increase the water discharge rate to approximately 5,000 gallons of water per minute (or 2.6 billion gallons annually) from the storage basin into one or both watersheds. U.S. Steel-Minntac currently discharges to these watersheds under a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. U.S. Steel-Minntac is required to monitor the discharges for sulfate, hardness, chloride and other water quality measures. The Draft EIS also evaluated related technologies and process modifications to determine whether these conditions would be affected by the proposed siphoning system. In 2001, the MPCA completed a Final Scoping Decision document, which outlines the framework for the EIS. That process directed the EIS to study several issues related to the project, which are specified in the Final Scoping Decision document. And, as a result, currently-requested public comments will be restricted to only those issues. Copies of the Draft EIS are available for review at public libraries in Mountain Iron, Eveleth, Virginia, Hibbing, Duluth and Minneapolis, as well as the MPCA's Duluth office, 525 Lake Avenue South, Suite 400. The document is also available on the MPCA's Web site at/news/eaw/index.html . To receive a copy of the Draft EIS on paper or compact disk, contact John Elling at (651) 282-9885 or (800) 657-3864. Written comments must be submitted no later than May 25 to John Elling, Project Manager, MPCA, 520 Lafayette Road North, St. Paul, MN 55155, by e-mail to john.elling@pca.state.mn.us or faxed to him at (651) 297-2343. A written response will be provided to all comments received during the comment period. The final EIS will be brought before the MPCA Citizens' Board for a decision on its adequacy. For more information about the public meeting, contact Anne Perry Moore, MPCA Public Information Officer at (218) 723-2356. For more information about the proposed plan, contact John Elling, Project Panager, at (651) 282-9885. Both can be reached toll-free at (800) 657-3864.