Twin Metals mine
Twin Metals LLC is seeking approval to create and operate a copper sulfide mine near Ely, Minnesota, on Superior National Forest land.
The federal government said it has filed an application for a "mineral withdrawal", which would begin with a thorough study of the likely environmental and other impacts of mining if it were permitted in a watershed that flows into the Boundary Waters.
In the 1960s, during the Lyndon Johnson administration, the International Nickel Company negotiated with federal officials to begin copper-nickel mining near Ely in St. Louis County, Minnesota.
It is part of the greater Boundary Waters region along the Minnesota–Ontario border, a historic and important thoroughfare in the fur trading and exploring days of New France and British North America.
[25] A spokesman for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy said that dry stacking is generally better than a tailings basin and dam but the department needed to see more specifics on the plan.
St. Louis County Commissioner Tom Rukavina said it seemed that the Forest Service had already made up its mind: "When you put out a press release that says you're deeply concerned about sulfide mining, you bias your own opinion."
Mike Syresvud, president of Iron Range Building Trades, supported the proposal and urged the Forest Service to allow the leases and evaluate the environmental impact once Twin Metals had submitted a mine plan.
"[31] Citing the environmental risks that a sulfide-based copper-nickel mine posed to BWCA water quality, in December 2016 the Obama administration decided not to renew the leases.
The St. Louis County Timberjay has obtained documents the government released to the plaintiffs as part of discovery, most of which are memoranda Minnesota officials wrote to the Interior Department in 1965 and 1966, when INCO still owned the leases.
The Timberjay reported: The discussions and agreements described in the memoranda suggest that the Trump administration may have a difficult time defending the validity of the legal opinion under which Interior officials made their decision.
Executive Director of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters Alex Falconer said, "The Trump administration broke its word to us, to Congress, and to the American people when it said it would finish the environmental assessment and base decisions on facts and science.
[38] A Center For American Progress review of the environmental assessment said: In December 2018, the BLM released a separate 34-page EA recommending that Twin Metals’ mineral leases be renewed.
Several environmental groups that opposed Twin Metals' proposals asked for an extension until March 25 because they had been unable to assess information they needed to conduct a review.
Minnesota's U.S. senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and U.S. representatives Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar, and Dean Phillips also asked the BLM to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement about the mine's effects on the Boundary Waters' "sensitive ecosystem" and to agree to a 60-day extension.
[13][41] With its formal plan submitted state and federal officials in December 2019,[12] Twin Metals announced it had received the Bureau of Land Management's Notice of Intent to scope and prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed mine.
In March 2021, the Biden administration announced that the Interior and Agriculture departments would review Twin Metals' lease renewal and a federal judge approved a Justice Department request to pause a lawsuit filed in 2020 by Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness and a coalition of canoe outfitters and environmental groups that argued federal agencies had failed to conduct a thorough environmental review ahead of the renewal leases given to Twin Metals.
[45] The federal government said it has filed an application for a "mineral withdrawal", which would begin with a thorough study of the likely environmental and other impacts of mining if it were permitted in a watershed that flows into the Boundary Waters.
[47][48] Principal deputy solicitor Ann Marie Bledsoe Downes wrote that the department "issued Twin Metals' 2019 lease renewals in violation of multiple legal authorities."
Several past administrations, including those of Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, determined that INCO's successors (e.g., Twin Metals) had no absolute right to renewal in legal opinions issued by attorneys with the Department of Interior.
[49] In December 2019, Landwehr and a group of environmentalists asked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to stop the Twin Metals mine, saying, "Minnesota shouldn't even be considering a project that the Obama administration scuttled in 2016 as an unacceptable risk to the country's most popular wilderness," A spokesperson for Walz responded, "The governor believes that no mining project should move forward unless it passes a strict environmental review process that includes meaningful opportunities for public comment."
In a letter to Congress, the tribe wrote, "It is unacceptable to trade this precious landscape and our way of life to enrich foreign mining companies that will leave a legacy of degradation that will last forever.
[54][55] In August 2020, they filed an amended complaint alleging that there was improper interference to remove the stipulation that lease renewals be subject to Forest Service approval.
[56] In June 2020, Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness filed a lawsuit requesting that the Minnesota DNR ban copper mining in the Boundary Waters watershed.
When the Minnesota Chippewa objected to the mine because it could pollute the Boundary Waters, Novak called on residents to stop hosting events at a nearby Native American casino, and the city council unanimously defended his action.
Longtime Ely resident Paul Schurke, who along with Will Steger made the first unsupported dogsled trip to the North Pole, has said that local mine supporters are being “hoodwinked...if they score the permits, they'll sit on them until the market improves and until expensive mining manpower has been replaced by robotics.”[58] Ely resident Becky Rom has been leading wilderness trips and speaking out for the preservation of the Boundary Waters since she was a girl.
Rom and Landwehr believe that environmental reviews are inadequate to maintain the BWCA's integrity because existing regulations do not address the specific risks of Twin Metals' proposal and permit some degradation.
But the gains would be short-lived once the mine shut down after its projected 25-year lifespan and would undercut the outdoors-based economy that, along with tourists, has drawn entrepreneurs and professionals to live and work near the Boundary Waters.
[61] The Center for American Progress has listed numerous concerns about Twin Metals' plans: The Star Tribune editorial board opposes copper mining so close to the Boundary Waters.
"[63] Tom Tidwell, who was chief of the U.S. Forest Service from 2009 to 2017, opposes the project and the cancellation of the more in-depth study, saying, "The vast network of waterways in the Boundary Waters region makes it particularly vulnerable to acid mine drainage.
Haaland has criticized the Trump administration, saying in 2019, "In places like Minnesota, the Forest Service and [Bureau of Land Management] are jointly responsible for putting valuable freshwater resources at risk from mining pollution.
