Why is the National Forest Service selling 6700 acres of SUPERIOR NATL FOREST, MN, to Polymet, with no EIS??

Question

There is a bill in Legislature in Minnesota to allow the National Forest Service to sell, directly to Polymet mining, 6700 acres of Superior National Forest, with no public hearing, no Environmental Impact Statement, nothing. that land includes 1200+ acres of wetlands.

My question is: why would the NFS suddenly, with no notice, place a bill to sell DIRECTLY, with NO public input, land to a mining company, land...that is the publics land?

Incidentally, Polymet intends to, within 12 months, have an open pit mining operation in place and active in that land.

WHY ARE WE ALLOWING THIS?

Answer 1

Looks to me like Polymet forgot that the public usually gets to have something to say about how public land is used.   Unfortunately for Polymet,  public discourse usually takes time and mining companies are not real patient when they want to start removing 400 million tons of copper and nickel ore by stripping away hundreds of acres of wetlands.  

Usually the Forest Service does a land swap with a private corporation, but only after a long process of evaluation of the pros and cons and opportunity for the public to have input.  Polymet can't wait for the public to take a look at this and maybe even object to swapping away national forest land to a mining company.    

So Polymet used their backroom contacts to get this legislation introduced that would go around the public review process and would insure that they got the public land they want. And quick too; the legislation would require the Forest Service sell the land to Polymet winthin 180 days.  Don't believe this, I didn't either until I read the bill, see: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext...

Need more information?  see some of the links below:

Answer 2

Ask your elected representatves this question, loudly and in public. That is what they are for, to do what the majority of people want, not just a few lobbyists