Q: Your Ask Us column on May 12 has bred my question. At the end of the column, you mention land owned by Unimin. What is going on with that land? Unimin owns a lot of land in the area of the Kasota Prairie and the State Scientific and Natural Area. Unimin has closed its operations and seems to have abandoned its silica sand strip mine. There are still signs all over the area stating Unimin property. I think Unimin was sold and the actual owners have a different name. Is Unimin obligated to restore the prairie? It’s really a beautiful place! Thank you!
A: It’s been six years since Unimin Mining merged with another sandmining company — Fairmount Santol — to become “Covia,” although south-central Minnesotans often still think of the sprawling sand mines south and southwest of Kasota as Unimin.
About 18 months after the merger, Covia idled the Kasota Township mine, laying off more than 60 employees at a time when the market for silica sand used in oil and gas fracking had deteriorated.
And it’s not surprising that people might be confused about the fate of the land. There were a lot of mixed messages at the time.
In November of 2019, a Covia spokesman told The Free Press that the Kasota mine was “permanently closed.” The following August, another Covia spokesman said that characterization was mistaken.
“It’s not closed. It’s idled and unclosed,” said Matt Schlarb, director of investor relations for Ohio-based Covia.
Schlarb was responding to a story in The Free Press about members of Save the Kasota Prairie, the organization that had worked to preserve and restore 300 acres of restored prairie that is owned and cared for by Covia, and their concerns that a bankruptcy filing by the company earlier that year could doom the grassland.
“We’ve had a good relationship with them,” Schlarb said of Save the Kastota Prairie, “and we expect to continue to have a good relationship with them.”
As for the reader’s belief that the company has now closed its operations and “abandoned” its mine, that’s not the case, according to Aaron Stubbs, who serves as the environmental services director and planning and zoning administrator for Le Sueur County.
“Covia has not ceased operations at this site. They are just not as active as they once were,” Stubbs said.
A quick look at county property records by Ask Us Guy showed Covia, doing business as Unimin Minnesota Corporation, still owns more than 1,900 acres of land valued at nearly $14 million along the east bank of the Minnesota River near Kasota. And the company was up to date on its property taxes, having paid about $120,000 just for its first-half payment of 2024 for those parcels.
As for the company’s obligations for restoring the landscape, the change in ownership doesn’t change a thing, Stubbs said.
“From a Planning and Zoning perspective, conditional use permits (CUPs) run with the land and may be continued through new ownership provided the new ownership continues to meet the approved conditions and operates the conditional use as previously approved,” he said. “For the CUP to remain valid, the use must remain active. Although they may have reduced staff in the area, there are still ongoing operations.”
The terms of the conditional use permit are typical of one involving mining, which the county refers to as “mineral extraction.” The applicant is required to submit a detailed reclamation plan that describes how the site will be restored once mining is finished.
It is not the case that the reclamation work can wait until the entire property is mined out. The reclamation work must be done each time a particular portion of the mining area has been tapped out. The amount of new land opened up for mining is restricted based on how much of the old mining area has been restored.
“There are limits to how many acres of the mine can be open at any one time,” Stubbs said. “Typically, reclamation is an ongoing process that occurs in a previously exhausted area prior to opening a new area for continued mining. A company that pays the taxes and maintains the area cannot delay reclamation indefinitely, they need to ensure the open mine area does not exceed the maximum allowed by their CUP.”
So what happens if a company stops all activity at a mine? Can the company endlessly delay further reclamation simply by claiming that it intends to resume mining at some unidentified future date?
Nope, Stubb said. And there’s a financial backstop in place for instances where a company goes bankrupt or otherwise abandons a property. Le Sueur County’s zoning ordinance required Unimin to set aside funds for reclamation work in the event that the company fails to meet its obligations.
“If operations completely ceased, a business would face possible suspension or revocation of their approved CUP. If that happens and a company walks away from the property and does not sell it to another operation that continues with the mining and reclamation, the county could access the bond to offset the cost of reclamation.”
It’s not an inconsequential pot of money, either.
“The required amount of bond is set by the county’s Board of Commissioners,” Stubbs said. “For the Kasota mine, the current bond we have on file is $4,128,917.”
The CUP for Unimin’s south mining operation in Kasota Township, a permit which dates back to 2013, is still available for review online.
It states: “Reclamation shall be on going with back filling of areas and establishment of vegetation proceeding as soon as practical after a mining area has been completed” and that “reclamation shall utilize native vegetative species for the purposes of creating wildlife habitat.”
The company is required to summarize its reclamation activities each year in a annual report.
There are a couple of provisions that specifically mention the prairie and the scientific and natural area, along with the potential for additional public use of the reclaimed land.
Among other things, the permit requires the reclamation plan to include “identification of the seed mixes to be used throughout the Site including special consideration near the Kasota Prairie SNA due to the sensitive nature of the area.”
The reclamation area must be monitored to ensure that noxious weeds and invasive plants are controlled throughout “and specifically adjacent to the Kasota Prairie SNA.”
It also requires Unimin to cooperate with the county parks department and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Parks and Trails division to “consider providing a pedestrian trail and park dedication.”
Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, 418 S. Second St., Mankato, MN 56001. Call Mark Fischenich at 344-6321 or email your question to mfischenich@mankatofreepress.com; put Ask Us in the subject line.