(CN) — The Biden administration has revoked a lease for a controversial copper-nickel mining project near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, effectively stopping the project in its tracks.
In a memorandum to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Tuesday afternoon, Deputy Solicitor for Indian Affairs Ann Bledsoe Downes wrote that a 2019 renewal of Chilean mining company Twin Metals’ hardrock mineral leases in the Superior National Forest was improper. The Bureau of Land Management had denied Twin Metals’ request to renew its 1966 leases in 2016, but rescinded its decision in 2019 after Trump-era officials reevaluated their predecessors’ finding that the leases did not comply with law.
The proposed mine sought to exploit copper and nickel reserves beneath the forest, promising to reinvigorate the flagging mining industry of northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. Environmental groups and some other interests in the state have opposed it, citing concerns that toxic mine runoff could contaminate the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, one of Minnesota’s biggest tourist destinations.
Twin Metals submitted its proposal for the mine in 2019, and a Washington federal judge found in 2020 that the lease renewal was legal, but challenges of the decision have continued.
“Today is a major win for Boundary Waters protection,” Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters Chair Becky Rom said in a statement. “This action by the Biden administration re-establishes the long-standing legal consensus of five presidential administrations and marks a return of the rule of law. It also allows for science-based decision-making on where risky mining is inappropriate.”
Twin Metals, in its own statement, excoriated the Biden administration and called the decision “a political action intended to to stop the Twin Metals project without conducting the environmental review prescribed in law.”
The mining company said it would fight the decision and that it was “confident that a full environmental review will show that the science behind this modern mine will prove that we can advance this project safely under the highest of standards.” It also argued that its mines would provide “much-needed economic growth to our region and the opportunity to responsibly develop the critical minerals needed for our global efforts in combatting the climate crisis.”
Copper and nickel are both used to make batteries like those used in electric cars, but copper-sulfide mining has been known to create acid mine drainage, which can generate water pollution indefinitely.
Twin Metals is one of two controversial Minnesota mining projects to see setbacks this week. On Monday, the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that state regulators hadn’t applied enough scrutiny to water-pollution permits for the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine near the small town of Babbit.
The state has a lengthy history of mining, which created an economic boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries after iron was discovered on the north shore of Lake Superior. Mining for taconite, a lower-quality form of iron ore, began in 1956 on the Iron Range and continues today, but Minnesota’s mining industry more generally has declined substantially starting in the 1960s.
With that has come political changes. Once a Democratic stronghold secured by union mine labor, the Iron Range has drifted steadily to the right over the past half-century, with Donald Trump securing 45.8% of the vote in the area’s seven core counties in 2020. While President Joe Biden took 51.9% of the vote there that year, his win represented a substantial decline from the 62% Barack Obama secured in 2012.
Republicans in Minnesota have almost universally supported mining, while the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has been deeply divided on the issue. Republican Congressman Pete Stauber, who represents the area, condemned Biden’s decision in a statement.
“Let me be clear: President Biden has chosen to ban mining,” Stauber said. “He’s choosing foreign sourced minerals, including mines that use child slave labor, over our own domestic, union workforce that follows the best labor and environmental standards in the world.”
Democratic Congresswoman Betty McCollum, meanwhile, celebrated the decision, saying in a statement that “some places are simply too special to mine, and it is our obligation to ensure these unique and valuable lands and waters remain intact for generations to come.”
Democratic Governor Tim Walz, meanwhile, kept his studied silence on the issue. Walz, who was a U.S. representative for southern Minnesota before his election to the governorship, has been targeted by some of his fellow Democrats for refusals to act against the mining projects or the recently completed Line 3 pipeline, all of which have been fiercely opposed by environmentalists in the party but supported by its backers in organized labor.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
California legislative committee approves deepfake bill April 23, 2024 -
