You have to give Minnesota preservationist groups credit for their shameless nature when it comes to proposed copper/nickel/precious metals projects in northeastern Minnesota.

These groups have steadfastly been opposed to what will be a new era of mining and jobs for the Range, regardless what an Environmental Impact Statement, years in the making, would eventually say.

OK, fine. Why expect anything different from these anti-mining, anti-jobs people.

But now that the EIS for PolyMet’s NorthMet project near Hoyt Lakes is complete and online for public comment, including of course all the bad and negative things that will automatically flow so easily from opponents, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership has a new complaint — one that the group says should extend the comment period, thus delaying the project even further.

This one is a doozy.

This time that organization, which represents 27 environmental, civic and business groups, basically says the EIS is too well done.

Unreal.

The partnership is requesting that the comment period be extended by three months — from 90 days to 180 days — because the 2,200-page EIS is “too long and too complex.”

My goodness, how dare the EIS be too thorough, too complete, too accommodating?

The partnership has deep pockets. It can afford to have people spend three months going word by word through the EIS, if it so desires.

But a new delay for the PolyMet project because its EIS is too detailed is an absolutely ludicrous position.

The DNR and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should respectfully tell the partnership there will be no extended comment period.

— The Mesabi Daily News, Dec. 21