Congressional Republicans have sent President Donald Trump a resolution that would lift a federal ban on mining near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, hoping to clear the way for a South American company to extract precious metals from the region’s pristine forests, lakes and bogs.
House Republicans approved the resolution last month despite conservationists’ warnings that the move would lead to devastating pollution in one of the country’s last remaining wild areas. The Senate followed suit Thursday, voting 50-49 to send the measure to Trump for his signature.
Democrats argued on the Senate floor that lifting the ban would set a dangerous precedent that could lead to lifting protections on public lands across the country. Minnesota senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith warned Republicans were stealing part of their state’s identity.
Klobuchar, who has supported iron mining in the past but is now running for Minnesota governor, called the Boundary Waters a place of “mist over meadows” and “sunlight on leaves.” Smith said the GOP was ignoring Minnesotans who don’t want to see the wilderness area destroyed.
“You can support mining, but that does not mean you support every mine in every place,” Smith said.
No Republicans spoke on lifting the ban.
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness stretches for about 240 kilometres (150 miles) in the Superior National Forest along Minnesota’s border with Canada. It’s roughly 160 kilometres southwest of Thunder Bay, Ont.
It’s a land of crystalline lakes, vast forests of pine, spruce and birch, striking sunsets and clear, star-dusted nights. For those willing to paddle and portage off the most-travelled routes, the region offers solitude and a silence broken only by the cries of loons and the occasional howl of a wolf.
Logging is prohibited, planes passing over it can dip no lower than 1,220 metres (4,000 feet) except in emergencies and motorized watercraft are limited to only certain areas. Tens of thousands of canoeists, kayakers and campers explore the wilderness each year, according to U.S. Forest Service data.
Company eyes region’s metals
Part of the national forest that encompasses the wilderness area sits on what’s known as the Duluth Complex, a rock formation that contains copper, nickel, lead, zinc, iron, silver and gold, according to the Forest Service.
Twin Metals Minnesota LLC, a subsidiary of Chile-based Antofagasta Minerals, submitted a plan to the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2019 to mine copper, nickel and other precious metals in the national forest. Company officials said in an operational plan that year that the mine would create hundreds of union jobs, more than a thousand “spinoff jobs” and tax revenue for struggling communities in northeastern Minnesota.
“With this Project, Minnesota can be a model for modern, sustainable and environmentally and socially responsible mining,” the plan said.
The first Trump administration renewed the company’s mineral leases on the site in 2019, but Biden interior officials terminated the deals in early 2022. The next year the administration imposed a 20-year moratorium on mining across just over 1,000 square kilometres (400 square miles) in the forest. The administration said the ban would protect the watershed and canoe wilderness.
Twin Metals has filed a federal lawsuit seeking a declaration that the leases remain valid. A judge threw the case out in 2023. A company appeal is pending.
The president has called to boost domestic energy and mineral production, declaring an energy emergency days after retaking office in January 2025.
His administration last fall reinstated a 2017 legal opinion that allowed Twin Metals to renew its leases in the Superior National Forest. Minnesota regulators approved the company’s exploratory plans in December.
U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, a Duluth Republican, introduced the resolution to lift the moratorium in January. He said the ban has cost Minnesota jobs and put the country’s mineral security at risk.
He remarked on the House floor ahead of the vote in that chamber that it’s better to mine in Minnesota than deal with China or Russia for key minerals.
Environmentalists push back
Lifting the moratorium would allow mining in the national forest along the edge of the Boundary Waters, not in the wilderness area.
But eliminating the ban has hit a sore spot with environmentalists and outdoor enthusiasts. They warn that pollution from mining operations will flow through the wilderness area’s watershed and contaminate the region with mercury and sulfides, chemical compounds that contain sulfur.
They maintain that fish, wildlife and plants will suffer, particularly the wild rice that plays a crucial role in Minnesota’s Chippewa tribal culture.
Teddy Roosevelt’s great-grandson and other relatives wrote a letter to Republican senators urging them to keep the moratorium in place. The Friends of the Boundary Waters, a group that works to protect the area, has orchestrated a demonstration in front of Stauber’s office in Hermantown, Minn., and staged a rally at the Capitol building in St. Paul to protest lifting the moratorium.
The issue has become another flashpoint of contention between the state and the Trump administration after federal immigration officers shot and killed two Minneapolis residents in January.
The company argued in its 2019 plan that the mine would carry on a tradition in northeastern Minnesota, noting the area around the site was once home to 11 mines.
Mine could be years away
The company also insisted that new low-carbon technologies designed to combat climate change need precious metals. Wind turbine construction requires copper, lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles need cobalt and nickel is a key part of corrosion-resistant alloys in desalinization plants.
The $1.7 billion mine would operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, according to the proposal. But the plan was laced with pledges to protect the environment. The company said the mine would be underground and that no waste rock would be stored above ground, eliminating a potential source of acid drainage, and the area would be revegetated after the mine closed, among other promises.
Trump is expected to sign the resolution, but even without a moratorium it could be years before a mine opens. Twin Metals said in its 2019 proposal that construction could take two to three years, but that could be optimistic.
Trump could quickly renew the company’s federal leases and push federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue permits. Twin Metals would still need as many as 18 permits from state officials, according to the 2019 proposal, and would face an uphill battle if voters pick Klobuchar as governor in November.
And environmental groups could challenge any of those permits in court, blocking construction for potentially years while the cases are resolved.
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