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Marshall Helmberger
REGIONAL It appears mining companies on the Iron Range can afford to clean-up toxic water discharges at their taconite plants and tailings basins. But they likely won’t have to if new rules the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is proposing are enacted, as early as this year.
The new rules, designed to replace standards first established in the late 1960s, were the subject of a public hearing earlier this month before an administrative law judge in St. Paul. The public comment period on the new rules, which would all but eliminate numeric water quality standards for what are known as Class 3 and Class 4 waters in Minnesota, ends Feb. 24. (See sidebar for more on water classifications in Minnesota).