People Near Active Mines & Mineral Recycling Plants Need More Protections

Clean Air

Take Action: Efforts by U.S. Strategic Metals and Critical Minerals Recovery Could Cause Lasting Impacts on Your Health, Air, Water, and Land

Source of Image: Missouri Department of Natural Resources

US Strategic Metals (USSM), formerly Missouri Cobalt, acquired the Madison Mine site in 2018 and is planning to use the site to mine and refine existing mine waste and underground deposits to create cobalt products among other mineral products.

Earlier this year, US Strategic Metals (USSM) applied for a construction permit from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR). However, our state’s regulations do not effectively protect nearby residents–including you–from radioactive materials and other cancer-causing substances. DNR has yet to make a decision on this permit. Meanwhile, USSM is in an ongoing lawsuit the U.S. government brought against USSM in January of 2024 for violations of the Clean Water Act. We must stop the air and water pollution that puts you and your community at risk of serious health problems.

While USSM claims the Madison Mine site is “the largest cobalt reserve in North America,” it is very small in global comparison! This cobalt reserve is only 1% of the reserves in The Republic of Congo. The public health and environmental risks are far too high for such a small amount of cobalt.

Underground mining creates large amounts of waste rock, destroys vegetation, and releases toxins into the air and water. Particles emitted into the air during the cobalt mining include radioactive emissions, cancer-causing particles, and particles that can cause vision problems, vomiting, nausea, heart problems, and thyroid damage. These toxins cannot be destroyed, so their danger grows over time as they build up in the air and water. The refining process is at least as harmful as the mining itself because it uses cancer-causing chemicals to separate out desired metals. Our community is not the only one at risk: the pollution spreads downstream and downwind. 

USSM admits they only have an “18-year mineral supply on an 1,800-acre site with an additional 2,000 acres of nearby mining rights.” This is not worth the harm that could be caused for generations! Doe Run’s harm in the 1990s should be a reminder that even after a mine is closed, hard-to-remediate contaminants can continue to poison people and land alike for decades after: Doe Run caused lead poisoning in hundreds of children and over 600 properties throughout Herculaneum and beyond. It wasn’t until 2010 that lawsuits forced Doe Run to clean up its properties and compensate the 700 owners and occupiers of contaminated properties. We cannot risk more lives being harmed and lost from harmful mining operations. 

Furthermore, USSM will “process third party concentrates, cobalt hydroxide and recycle metals from lithium-ion batteries . . . to produce cobalt, nickel, lithium and copper.” As recently as October 30, 2024, a lithium-ion battery recycling center managed by Critical Minerals Recovery in Fredericktown exploded, causing a multi-mile plume and a call for evacuation of Fredericktown residents. These recycling facilities need stronger regulations to protect people and their environment.

Take action to stop dangerous mining and increase protections for mineral recycling:

  1. Tell DNR’s Air Pollution Control Program to reject USSM’s air permit
  2. Tell DNR’s Land Reclamation Program and Water Protection Program to better protect Missourians from mining operations.
  3. Call your state legislators and ask them to file comprehensive protective legislation for communities and natural areas near and downstream from mines. Look up your legislators here.

Learn more:

Cobalt Mining Fact Sheet 2024Download
Rare Earth Element Mining HarmsDownload
Silica Sand Mining HarmsDownload

Sources:

  1. US Strategic Metals: Solving The Critical Battery Materials Supply Chain Puzzle, U.S. Strategic Metals, March 20, 2024, https://www.usstrategicmetals.com/us-strategic-metals-solving-the-critical-battery-materials-supply-chain-puzzle
  2. Application for Minor Source DNR Construction Permit, Apr. 30, 2024, Project 241701.0056, https://dnr.mo.gov/document-search/missouri-cobalt-llc-madison-mine-project-fredericktown-june-2024.
  3. US Strategic Metals Announces Three-Way Strategic Partnership for Domestic United States Downstream Critical Minerals Processing, PR Newswire, Sept. 12, 2024, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-strategic-metals-announces-three-way-strategic-partnership-for-domestic-united-states-downstream-critical-minerals-processing-302246690.html
  4. Large battery plant fire outside Fredericktown prompts evacuations Wednesday, KSDK, Oct. 30, 2024, https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/missouri-battery-plant-fire-fredricktown/63-a057e153-7ab5-462c-9fc3-625c61c130a0. 
  5. Cobalt, U.S. Geological Survey, January 2022, https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-cobalt.pdf; Report on Carcinogens Monograph on Cobalt and Cobalt Compounds That Release Cobalt Ions In Vivo: RoC Monograph 06, National Toxicology Program, National Library of Medicine; 2016 Apr. 2, Human Exposure, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK580288/ (“The largest cobalt reserves are in the Congo (Kinshasa), Australia, Cuba, Zambia, Canada, Russia, and New Caledonia.”); 
  6. Environmental Risks of Mining, Mass. Instit. of Tech.,  https://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/mining.html
  7. Environmental Costs of Refineries, Mass. Instit. of Tech., https://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/refining.html (“Major concerns with air emissions include radioactive particles and dusts with heavy metals . . . . Refining in particular can cause even more damage with air emissions, which can include . . . HCl, which becomes a strong acid when exposed to water, such as the water in the atmosphere, along with the aforementioned radioactive substances and metals, if no preventative measures are taken.”).
  8. Shahjadi Hisan Farjana, Nazmul Huda, M.A. Parvez Mahmud, Life cycle assessment of cobalt extraction process, Journal of Sustainable Mining, Volume 18, Issue 3, 2019, available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2300396018301836. 
  9. Our Story, U.S. Strategic Metals,  https://www.usstrategicmetals.com/about/. 
  10. North America’s Largest Lead Producer to Spend $65 Million to Correct Environmental Violations at Missouri Facilities, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/north-america-s-largest-lead-producer-spend-65-million-correct-environmental-violations (Oct. 8, 2010).
  11. The Story of Doyle, et al. v. Fluor, et al; 2013 CTLA Case of the Year, The Hannon Law Firm, https://www.hannonlaw.com/blog/story-20-year-lawsuit/ (last visited Oct. 31, 2024).