In October, Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the Chilean-owned mining company Antofagasta, received state approval to pursue exploratory sulfide-ore drilling under Birch Lake, just upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
In Washington D.C., U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Hermantown, has been pushing to reinstate federal mineral leases that were canceled in 2022 and to reverse the Public Land Order made earlier this year that banned sulfide mining for 20 years on federal land in the watershed containing the Boundary Waters.
As explained in a November Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Federal Policy Update, as well as in a July statement from my organization, the U.S. House Interior Appropriations bill ( HR4821 ) would, if enacted, eliminate the Superior National Forest mineral withdrawal aimed at protecting the Boundary Waters from the threat of sulfide mining and require the reinstatement of mineral leases held by Twin Metals in the Rainy River watershed, upstream of the Boundary Waters.
What more reminders are needed that greed never sleeps? Foreign-owned mining company executives and misguided politicians will stop at nothing, it seems, to strip Minnesota of our natural resources, pollute the Boundary Waters watershed with acid mine drainage (a slurry of sulfuric acid and toxic heavy metals), and ship sulfide ore to our most dangerous adversary, China, as I explained in an Oct. 21 News Tribune op-ed (“ Saying no to sulfide mining a no-brainer for veterans ”).
Since 1776, the U.S. has fought in nearly a dozen major wars and intervened militarily in many others, with every generation of Americans witnessing combat in one form or another. Over the years, tens of millions of Americans have worn the uniform of our nation’s Armed Forces, including some 16 million during World War II. And given that our next war may well be with China, as the Wall Street Journal and others have suggested, we should not be providing that nation with the natural resources it needs to make more weapons.
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“Our message was clear, we are not anti-mining and if there was one example of a mine of this type working without a catastrophic failure to the landscape it was built on, perhaps we could consider it,” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Armed Forces Initiative Coordinator Trevor Hubbs said in an October post . “Unfortunately, the proximity to the watershed and the likelihood of failure make this mine an impossible risk for the Boundary Waters and Superior National Forest.”
Nearly six years ago, Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers posted a report with the top 10 reasons to stop Twin Metals’ mining proposal, to help protect northern Minnesota’s waterways, watersheds, and wildlife. We also posted a report detailing 100-plus reasons . All of these reasons — and many more — are still valid today.
“Hardrock mining is the most polluting industry in the United States, with, as its calling card, Superfund sites, polluted waterways, and lakes so toxic birds die when they land on them,” Boundary Waters advocates JT Haines and Pete Marshall wrote in a January commentary in the News Tribune.
To that I added, in an Aug. 31 News Tribune op-ed, quoting a February 2023 statement from the nonprofit Save The Boundary Waters, “Over the past five years, opportunities for public input on proposed sulfide-ore copper mining near the Boundary Waters have resulted in Americans submitting more than 675,000 comments supporting protections for the Boundary Waters Watershed.”
Conservation derives from the Latin “conservare,” meaning “to keep guard.” As America’s first conservationists, hunters have a century-old tradition of protecting public-lands habitat and fighting those driven by myopic greed. Although greed never sleeps, neither do we when it comes to the protection of our wild public lands, waters, and wildlife. There will be no sulfide mines here. Not on our watch. Not a chance.
David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and formerly of Grand Rapids, is an author and the founder and former chairman of Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (backcountryhunters.org).
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