Senate committee tours Emily manganese mine

EMILY — Can environmental regulations be streamlined to shorten the permit process to save job-creating companies money and time while protecting the environment?

Tuesday, senators from the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee were in the lakes area to tour sites — in Emily, Crosby and Brainerd — and get more information from project areas in regard to accelerating the permitting process as a way to create economic growth.

"There isn't a soul around here who wants to ruin the environment — nowadays that isn't going to happen. It just isn't," said Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, chairman of the committee, as he toured the manganese extraction project site near Emily. But permit process may take years, he said.

"If you tell that to the average folks in Minnesota they'll go, 'What is going on?'" Ingebrigtsen said. "But I know people have a right to protect the environment and if it's reasonable and if it actually is going to do that, then we should be doing that. But I can't imagine why is should take five years."

The manganese project near Emily seems to be working quite well, he said.

Cooperative Mineral Resources, a subsidiary of Crow Wing Power, hosted the tour and provided an update on the project to use high-pressure water jets to extract the ore 300 to 400 feet below the surface.

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