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The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is unique. It is the most-visited wilderness area in the nation and our only lakeland wilderness. In January 2023, then-U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland took action to protect the Boundary Waters watershed from the devastation and pollution that inevitably accompany copper mining. Her Public Land Order 7917 bans copper mining exploration and development on federal lands in the headwaters of the wilderness until 2043, the maximum 20-year period allowed.
The order states its objective is to protect the “social and natural resources, ecological integrity, and wilderness values in the Rainy River Watershed, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness … and the 1854 Ceded Territory of the Chippewa Bands in northeastern Minnesota … .” Consequently, the order also protects wilderness-edge communities that depend on the Boundary Waters for jobs and income.
Sadly, the pillagers of our public lands are relentless. President Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary tweeted in June that she was initiating the process to overturn the 20-year mining ban in the wilderness watershed. On July 31, the deputy interior secretary tweeted a baseless reinterpretation of law intended to pave the way for mining leases for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals, a pet project of Chilean billionaires. U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., introduced a bill in Congress that would grant 20-year mining leases to Antofagasta with mandatory renewals for an additional 50 years. Those leases would lie within the area where mining is currently banned and on some of the most popular recreational lands in the Superior National Forest.
The straight-faced assertion of mining companies that Minnesota’s tough environmental laws will protect our land, air, water and people is blatant dissembling. Right now, taconite mines are polluting the Boundary Waters. Analysis of chemicals in lakes and rivers in the wilderness watershed shows that pollution from the Peter Mitchell mine and the now-closed Dunka mine are degrading water quality and that the pollution is flowing into the Boundary Waters. This water quality data was collected with state-of-the-art methods and is housed in the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency database.
A Twin Metals copper mine would be miles closer to the Boundary Waters than those taconite mines. It would be a more dangerous polluter by orders of magnitude because the ore is sulfide-bearing. The resulting acid mine drainage would irreparably harm the wilderness.
A new report titled “Modern Mine Study: Water Quality Performance and Predictions at U.S. Mines Permitted Since 1990” examined eight modern hardrock mines across the United States. All eight mines degraded downstream surface water quality. Seven of the mines polluted groundwater; data was unavailable for the eighth. Notably, at the six mines where a mining company’s predictions could be compared to actual performance, water pollution was significantly worse than forecast. The companies underestimated acid drainage, leaching of heavy metals and the volume of water requiring long-term treatment.
