FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Libby London (612) 227-8407
September 29, 2025
From outfitters who build their livelihoods around clean water, to young explorers who have trekked thousands of miles or camped for an entire year inside the Wilderness to raise awareness, to runners and veterans who bring their own communities into the cause — the movement to protect the Boundary Waters is not just about one leader or one legacy. It is being carried forward by people of diverse backgrounds, skills, and stories who are united by their love for this place.
These new leaders are ensuring that the fight is not only sustained but expanding — bringing fresh energy, creative tactics, and broader voices to protect America’s most-visited wilderness for decades to come.
“As the granddaughter of a miner and the daughter of a pioneer in outdoor recreation, the 76-year-old national chair of the advocacy group Save the Boundary Waters has provided a link to a bygone era when the region was a true frontier…”
“Now Rom is preparing to let younger activists take over — at a time when the Trump administration is poised to make massive shifts to how public lands are managed…”
President Donald Trump has taken unprecedented steps to boost mining for copper, nickel and rare earth minerals, while also green-lighting a uranium mine and expanding coal mines. The federal government is prepared to execute a land swap to allow the Resolution Copper mine in Arizona to move forward after being stalled for more than a decade, and House Republicans have approved a 200-mile road through Alaskan wilderness that would allow access to copper and zinc deposits. And the administration has resurrected plans to begin mining a portion of the world’s largest undeveloped copper-nickel deposit on the very doorstep of the Boundary Waters, stating that it plans to reverse a Biden-era ban.
Opponents say pollution from the site would be carried downstream and spread through most of the region’s lakes and into Canada, ruining the pristine ecosystem for outdoor recreation.
The company behind the project, a Chilean-owned firm called Twin Metals Minnesota, vows that its advanced methods will minimize pollution and help cut America’s overwhelming reliance on foreign suppliers of critical minerals. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minnesota) has introduced legislation that would return the company’s leases for 20 years and require the government to approve renewals for another 50 years…”
“In the early 1960s, Rom helped her father and the conservationist Sigurd Olson in their efforts to pass the Wilderness Act, which created the first wilderness areas nationwide, and later to pass the 1978 Boundary Waters Act, which expanded the protected area, banned mining and logging and restricted the use of motorboats. Residents and resort operators were forced to take federal buyouts, and both men faced severe blowback from families that earned a living off those activities. Olson was burned in effigy in Ely, Minnesota, while a local boycott forced Rom’s father to sell his outfitting business in 1975…”
The Obama administration denied Twin Metals’ application to renew its federal leases in 2016 and initiated a lengthy environmental review on a potential 20-year mining ban, which extended into Trump’s first term. Trump officials halted that review and renewed the leases, only for Biden to cancel them in 2022. The next year, Biden officials signed off on a mining ban through 2043 on more than 225,000 acres of land in the Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters, including the mine site.”
Amid the political back-and-forth, Jason Zabokrtsky accompanied Rom on roughly a dozen of her trips to make the case that potential pollution from the mine could destroy his outfitting business, Ely Outfitting Company. Zabokrtsky, now 51, arrived as a 22-year-old guiding tours down the Gunflint Trail on the eastern side of the wilderness…”
“Now working behind the counter at Zabokrtsky’s shop, Amy Freeman became an advocate for the Boundary Waters in 2014 not long after she and her husband completed an 11,700-mile journey by kayak, canoe and dogsled across North America. Back in Ely and working as a guide, Freeman got involved when Rom’s group had opponents of the mine sign a canoe, instead of a petition, to be delivered to policymakers in Washington. “We stepped up and suggested we could paddle it to D.C.,” Freeman said…”
“Freeman helped inspire Alex Falconer, 45, to run 110 miles across the Boundary Waters, battling extreme conditions on the 38-hour journey while making social media posts calling on Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) to support permanent protections. Smith now champions such legislation.
‘I almost got heat exhaustion,” Falconer recalled. ‘I puked right along Rose Lake while trying to keep some food down.’ Falconer went on to run for the Minnesota House of Representatives and is midway through his first term. He’s sponsored a bill that would ban mining in the area’s entire watershed.”
“Policy and precedent show that copper mining pollution is unavoidable, especially in wet environments like that of northeastern Minnesota,” said Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters. “The industry’s own record makes clear that promises of ‘zero pollution’ are not credible…”
Outfitting and tourism — many of whose workers oppose the mine — have become central to the local economy. And they are winning over many of the 150,000 people who visit the Boundary Waters each year.
Last fall, Sean Leary and his wife, Jill, started a resort directly across the lake from Twin Metals’ proposed mine site. Leary, who uses a wheelchair after a car accident in 2001, offers packages for people with mobility issues, making use of adaptive kayaks in the summer and dog sleds in the winter. The Learys explain to visitors how mining pollution could kill the wild rice along their shoreline and upend the ecosystem for other wildlife.”
“I’m optimistic that we’re going to win this fight and it will continue to be wilderness,” Rom said.