Sulfide Mining Destroys Watersheds

(“Sulfide mining destroys watersheds.” Duluth News Tribune: 10/12/24)

During the last week of September, I was hunting ruffed grouse in northern Minnesota not far from the Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, where I’ve paddled, camped, chased grouse, and stalked whitetails for many years.[1]

Hunters, anglers, canoeists, and others were relieved during 2023 when the administration of President Joe Biden issued Public Land Order 7917 (PLO), which protects the headwaters of the Boundary Waters for 20 years via a withdrawal of 225,504 acres of federal lands and minerals from the federal mineral-leasing program.[1]

“The PLO stopped sulfide-ore copper mining proposals. That’s a kind of mining the Environmental Protection Agency determined to be the ‘most toxic industry,’” former St. Louis County commissioner Frank Jewell wrote in a February op-ed in the News Tribune. “Don’t forget that sulfide-ore copper mining has never been conducted in Minnesota—ever. Some people who don’t know or who ignore the facts will try to tell you it’s safe. Don’t be swayed.”[2]

In an October letter on the News Tribune Opinion page, former Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Board member Dave Zentner wrote, “I consider efforts to mine in a watershed draining into and through the Boundary Waters, based on the evidence of performance elsewhere, very likely to compromise a priceless resource … This industry has all too often gotten away with promises to do good, only to be followed by not meeting those promises and … putting the burden of resource recovery on taxpayers.”[3]

A foreign-owned (Chilean) mining company, Antofagasta—i.e., Twin Metals—is looking to build a copper-ore sulfide mine upstream from the Boundary Waters near Ely. After the mineral wealth has been extracted, the company will shut down and likely declare bankruptcy, leaving a polluted watershed and the associated cleanup costs to state and local taxpayers: Call it corporate socialism.

Then there’s Project 2025, a 900-page policy playbook written for the potential return of a conservative administration to the White House. One paragraph (on page 523) calls for the next administration to abandon the Biden administration’s “withdrawal” of land for mineral leasing in the Boundary Waters.[4]

As explained by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) Government Relations Manager Kaden McArthur in a July Blog post (“What Project 2025 Means for Public Lands and Waters”), “Hunters and anglers across the U.S. should take note of the expansive list of threats to our public lands and waters contained within Project 2025, and join BHA in opposing each anti-conservation recommendation …”[5]

A September Newsweek story (“Project 2025’s Unpopularity Continues to Grow”) references a NBC News poll that showed “57 percent of voters view Project 2025 as unfavorable, with only 4 percent seeing it as favorable.”[6] In addition, BHA’s 2024 Policy Priorities document identifies the Boundary Waters as a priority landscape and reiterated that, “We applauded the 20-year administrative mineral withdrawal of 225,000 acres initiated by the USFS in 2023.”[7]

During annual October trips into the Boundary Waters over the last nine years I’ve had the opportunity to hunt ruffed grouse; encounter moose, wolves, whitetails, and black bears; and listen to the mournful wails of loons and haunting howls of wolves—among many other priceless experiences.

In a March 2024 Backcountry Hunters & Anglers blog post (“Hunting For Experience”) I wrote that these experiences help us comprehend that “hunting, angling … canoeing, and life in general are about the same thing: experiencing the wider, wilder world in as many ways and places as possible in order to better comprehend life’s greater mosaic.”[8]

And as I stated in a February 2024 News Tribune op-ed (“Local View: Mining-threatened Boundary Waters remains a top priority”), “In the water world that is northern Minnesota, one thing you can count on is that any sulfide-mine proposal is also a watershed-ruining disaster in waiting.”[9] There will be no sulfide mines here. Not on our watch. Not a chance.[10]

David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and formerly of Grand Rapids, is a former Air Force missile launch officer, author, and the founder and former chairman of Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (backcountryhunters.org)

 


Additional/Related Information

-Micha Fields. “Grouse & Dumplings.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 10/2/24.

-“Hunting For Experience: Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Oral History Project.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 3/28/24.

-“Local View: Mining-threatened Boundary Waters remains a top priority.” Duluth News Tribune: 2/29/24.

-“Local View: Clean water, freedom ought to trump foreign-owned mines.” Duluth News Tribune: 1/11/24.

-“Northern Minnesota Deer Hunting: Hard Winters and Sage Advice.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 12/4/23.

-“A Hunter-Angler (Hell-Raisin’ & Habitat Savin’) Guide To Winning: Colorado BHA Examples (Browns Canyon & Camp Hale).” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 10/23/23.

-Press Release. “Biden-Harris Administration Protects Boundary Waters Area Watershed: National Forest System lands in northern Minnesota withdrawn from future mineral leasing.” U.S. Department of the Interior: 1/26/23.

Project 2025

-“Fall is here, and hunting season is in full swing. Even as many of us turn our thoughts to filling freezers, it’s important not to lose sight of the conservation fights at our doorstep … At the federal level, the much-discussed Project 2025 would have sweeping and harmful impacts on wildlife, public lands, and conservation, as BHA’s Government Relations Manager Kaden McArthur explained in a recent article. Candidates and initiatives from the top to the bottom of the ticket will have a major impact on public lands, wildlife, and hunting and fishing. So be sure to get educated and vote public lands and waters!” -Colorado BHA Fall Newsletter (10/2/24)

-Kaden McArthur. “What Project 2025 Means for Public Lands and Waters.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 7/15/24.

-Kaden McArthur. “BHA’s 2024 Policy Priorities.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 1/24/24.

-The former head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) during the prior administration (William Perry Pendley) wrote Chapter 16 (Department of the Interior) of Project 2025. https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-16.pdf

-“Mr. Pendley is not someone who should be entrusted with the management of our public estate. The fox has taken control of the hen house, and he is poised to systematically dismantle the very resources he is charged with overseeing.” –Land Tawney, former BHA President and CEO[1]

-Editor(s). “New BLM Leader Is Advocate for Sale of Public Lands.” RackCamp.com: 7/26/19.

-Natalie Venegas. “Project 2025's Unpopularity Continues to Grow: New Poll.” Newsweek: 9/22/24.

Bad Ideas

-Kaden McArthur. “House Committee Considers Legislation to Undermine the Antiquities Act.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 3/22/24.

-Conservation Lands Foundation (CLF). “New attacks on public lands emerge in Congress.” CLF: 11/17/23.

-Kaden McArthur. “New HOUSES Act Still a Threat to Our Public Lands.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 10/30/23.

-Katie McKalip. “House Appropriations Makes Drastic, Reckless Funding Cuts to Public Lands Management.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 7/20/23.

-David A. Lien “Selling off our public lands is a bad idea that won’t die.” VailDaily: 1/29/23.

-For more about the ongoing efforts by some legislators in Congress (and others) to privatize our public lands estate see the “Bad Ideas” section in: “A Hunter-Angler (Hell-Raisin’ & Habitat Savin’) Guide To Winning: Colorado BHA Examples (Browns Canyon & Camp Hale).” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 10/23/23.

BHA Armed Forces Initiative (AFI)

-“Giving Veterans a New Mission in Conservation”

-“Public lands = Freedom”

-“23% of our members are either active-duty military or veterans.”[2]

-BHA’s Armed Forces Initiative. “Armed Forces Initiative-Get Involved.”

-Become An AFI Volunteer; Armed Forces Initiative Leadership.

-“We are warriors, conservation warriors, with a mission to safeguard our wild landscapes for the generations yet to come.”[3]

-We want to give the Military community a new mission, and that mission is conservation.

-Commanders Intent: Instill within the Military Community, a knowledge of conservation practices and theory, a love of wild places, and a desire to elevate Americas public wild lands as fundamental components of American Freedom.

-“I recently came across the book ‘Silent Spring Revolution,’ which delves into the third wave of conservation in the 1960s and 1970s,” BHA Armed Forces Initiative (AFI) leader Garrett Robinson wrote (in ‘Warriors With A New Mission In Conservation’). “I strongly encourage each and every one of you to read it, for it reminds us that it’s time for the fourth wave, and we can be the leaders who usher it in.”[4]

-“We are unafraid of pain, unafraid to get our hands dirty, and unafraid of failure. In the end, we may lose some battles, but we will not rest until we’ve won the war.”[5]

-“We are warriors, conservation warriors, with a mission to safeguard our wild landscapes for the generations yet to come.”[6]

-Garrett Robinson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “Warriors with a New Mission in Conservation.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 9/27/24.

-“Any sportsman who isn’t an environmentalist is a fool.” –Rich Landers, Ted Trueblood Award recipient, BHA North American Rendezvous (3/7/15)

[1] Editor(s). “New BLM Leader Is Advocate for Sale of Public Lands.” RackCamp.com: 7/26/19.

[2] Travis Bradford. “2023 BHA Membership Survey Results.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 9/29/23.

[3] Garrett Robinson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “Warriors with a New Mission in Conservation.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 9/27/24.

[4] Garrett Robinson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “Warriors with a New Mission in Conservation.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 9/27/24. https://www.backcountryhunters.org/warriors_with_a_new_mission_in_conservation

[5] Garrett Robinson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “Warriors with a New Mission in Conservation.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 9/27/24. https://www.backcountryhunters.org/warriors_with_a_new_mission_in_conservation

[6] Garrett Robinson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “Warriors with a New Mission in Conservation.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 9/27/24. https://www.backcountryhunters.org/warriors_with_a_new_mission_in_conservation

[1] Press Release. “Biden-Harris Administration Protects Boundary Waters Area Watershed: National Forest System lands in northern Minnesota withdrawn from future mineral leasing.” U.S. Department of the Interior: 1/26/23.

[2] Frank Jewell of Duluth is a former St. Louis County commissioner. “President's visit a reminder of Bidenomics' importance to Canoe Country.” Duluth News Tribune: 2/1/24.

[3] Dave Zentner. “Mining industry has earned suspicion: In over six decades of volunteer work, including on the old MPCA Board, I’ve watched the mining industry in Minnesota claim the high road as long as things went its way.” Duluth News Tribune: 10/3/24.

[4] https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-16.pdf

[5] Kaden McArthur. “What Project 2025 Means for Public Lands and Waters.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 7/15/24.

[6] Natalie Venegas. “Project 2025's Unpopularity Continues to Grow: New Poll.” Newsweek: 9/22/24.

[7] Kaden McArthur. “BHA’s 2024 Policy Priorities.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 1/24/24.

[8] David A. Lien. “Hunting For Experience: Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Oral History Project.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 3/28/24.

[9] David A. Lien. “Local View: Mining-threatened Boundary Waters remains a top priority.” Duluth News Tribune: 2/29/24.

[10] David A. Lien “Local View: Clean water, freedom ought to trump foreign-owned mines.” Duluth News Tribune: 1/11/24.

[1] David A. Lien. “Northern Minnesota Deer Hunting: Hard Winters and Sage Advice.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 12/4/23.

About David Lien