When Paula Maccabee talks about the Talon mine, she talks about water. The proposed nickel mine is situated among vast wetlands, with a few lakes and streams interspersed, and it’s all connected to underground aquifers. It’s safe to say more of the area is wet than dry. And water and mining are a dangerous combination.

Maccabee is an attorney and the director of WaterLegacy, a group founded in 2009 to advocate for water, and fight mining pollution around Minnesota. The organization has hired several mining industry experts to help analyze the Talon proposal and advocate for protection. Having worked around the world, those individuals have helped put the mine in context.

“This is the wettest area that they’ve ever seen to have a proposal for sulfide ore mine,” Maccabee says.

The fact that the nickel and other metals that Talon wants to extract are found in ore with sulfur compounds is a big part of the risk. When exposed to air and water, the sulfides can turn into acid and send pollution downstream. The sulfur also hurts wild rice and causes increased mercury levels in fish. And the abundant water of the Tamarack area makes it very easy for the pollution to travel, evading containment.

Maccabee is a lawyer who has challenged mines across Minnesota. While the state is proud of its many lakes and abundant water, she has identified numerous failures to protect this priceless resource.

A fraction of the ore

The current Talon mine proposal is located outside the St. Croix River watershed, instead draining toward the upper Mississippi River. But the ore that interests the company extends to the upper reaches of the Kettle River—a state-designated Wild and Scenic River and a tributary of the St. Croix—and Talon controls much of the deposit through state mineral leases.

While the larger ore body is not included in the proposal currently open for public comment, Talon has conducted exploratory drilling in the Kettle River headwaters. Maccabee says the fact the entire ore deposit is not included in the current environmental review is one of its many gaps.

“This is very different from any mine I’ve ever looked at, in that Talon has proposed as its first project, a footprint that is less than one percent of the deposit,” she says. “Every other mine project I’ve ever seen in Minnesota has come to the state with a whole proposal.”

It’s one of what Maccabee says are many shortcomings in the proposal. She says documents submitted so far have provided scant details about what Talon plans to do, particularly in how the company would deal with waste from the mine or where ore would be processed.

“We’re not looking at the science of a proposal,” she says. “We’re looking at science fiction.”

Starting on the wrong foot

With the first phase of environmental review now underway, the company is asking the state to begin evaluating its potential impacts. Maccabee says that is premature.

“We’re starting this process, I believe, on the wrong foot with a sketchy proposal that hasn’t been tested either by economic analysis or by engineering analysis,” she says.

If the relatively small mine is approved, Talon would be required to seek approval for any expansion. Based on Minnesota’s history of managing other mine expansions, Maccabee believes there would be a lot of pressure on the Department of Natural Resources to provide access to the entire deposit once the company has invested in equipment, construction, and infrastructure.

She calls it a common mining industry strategy, to get a foot in the door and then pull it open. Or, as an 18th-century proverb warns: once a camel gets its nose in the tent, its body will soon follow.

“Minnesota has a very poor track record of requiring any kind of environmental review for mine expansions,” she says. “What has happened in the past is DNR has denied over and over all kinds of environmental review for expansions, even when the design is different from what was proposed, even when the mine is bigger, even when the tailing space is bigger.”

Mercury and mining

Ultimately, Maccabee is concerned the Talon mine could worsen water pollution in Minnesota. The state has a reputation for strong environmental protection, but she says rules are frequently not enforced, and Minnesotans have the water pollution to show for it.

Farther north in Minnesota, some taconite mines release massive amounts of sulfate and other contaminants. It has wiped out wild rice in some areas, and made fish unsafe to eat.

”Minnesota already has thousands of lakes that are impaired due to excessive mercury in fish tissue,” Maccabee says.

She points to a 2011 study by the Minnesota Department of Health that found nearly 10 percent of newborns in Minnesota’s Lake Superior basin had high enough mercury levels to impair brain development. Much of that mercury comes from distant power plant emissions, but it is absorbed into the food web thanks to the sulfate.

This process could combine with fluctuations in water levels caused by the mine to create conditions that would make the mercury problem worse. As wetlands dry out and are then saturated again, mercury is released, and then the sulfate drives a process that converts the mercury into a form that can be absorbed by fish. Maccabee says it would create a “perfect storm” of potential pollution.

”It would mobilize the mercury and release it to the water, and also interact with bacteria to methylate that mercury, so it becomes organic and can bioaccumulate in the food chain,” Maccabee says.

Long haul

The Talon mine is open for public comment on the scoping phase of its environmental review until Sept. 14. The Minnesota DNR is accepting input on what should be included in the full review.

Maccabee encourages everyone to weigh in. Commenters do not need to be experts to provide meaningful feedback. It’s important the state hear from as many people as possible. “The biggest advice I have is that any comments matter,” she says.

And she urges perseverance. The scoping phase is just the first of several opportunities for review and comment.

“This is a long haul,” she says. “Our commitment to the preservation of water and culture and community has to fuel our willingness to persist.”