Ron Meador: Lawsuits on Minnesota Mining Leases→

MinnPost:

“Ask yourself: Would it be OK to revoke a mining company’s rights in the same way that these leases were restored?

Two more lawsuits were filed this week against the Trump administration’s about-face on Twin Metals Minnesota’s mineral leases at the edge of the Boundary Waters, bringing the total to three.

The documents bring some clarity and concision to the tangled procedural history of the leases’ renewals, cancellation and re-granting. And on mining’s threat to area businesses centered on paddling and quiet recreation, they present some compelling illustrations of potential job losses. But perhaps their main value will be the focus they bring to this question: Has ours become a government of whim, or do the law, the rules and settled procedures still matter?

For several years now, ever since Twin Metals’ challengers began to gain traction in Washington for their objections to industrializing the edge of a prime American wilderness, the company has asserted that its leases along the South Kawishiwi River carry an automatic right of renewal. Given that TMM’s renewal applications have undergone repeated review for potential impacts on the Superior National Forest and on waters downstream, that’s an odd position — at least, it’s odd if you make the common-sense assumption that the fact of review carries the possibility of rejection.”

Reid Forgrave: Mining vs. Wilderness→

New York Times:

“Today Ely is home to a few thousand people, a place of long, hard winters that is, in the words of one resident, “not on the road to anywhere — we’re literally the end of the road.” People do not end up here by accident. For most of the town’s history, the main reason they came was to make a living off the rocks. The ore supported abundant mining jobs for generations.

For almost as long, however, people have been coming to this area for another reason, too: to visit America’s most popular national wilderness area, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, which encompasses roughly a million protected acres and thousands of lakes and welcomes 150,000 visitors annually. The “Land of 10,000 Lakes” is actually a land of 11,842 lakes, and that figure counts only those bigger than 10 acres. They are a legacy of the glaciers that retreated from the region about 10,000 years ago. As a result, the state has a significant fraction of the world’s supply of surface-available fresh water; 6 percent of Minnesota’s surface area is water, more than any other state.

Geological coincidence makes Ely — one three-square-mile town in the northernmost reaches of the continental United States — a focus of a national debate about the proper use of public lands. The place also distills the political fault lines in today’s America, pitting an angry working class against progressive activists. Just southeast of Ely, an international mining conglomerate has invested hundreds of millions of dollars during the past decade toward potential copper-nickel mines a few miles outside the Boundary Waters. The company — Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta — has drilled 1.6 million feet of core samples out of 496 holes to explore the deposit from which it soon hopes to process 20,000 tons of mineralized ore a day. The company believes the area’s valuable metals — copper, nickel, platinum, palladium, gold and silver — can be extracted in an environmentally responsible way and can provide hundreds of jobs to the job-starved economy of Minnesota’s Arrowhead Region, along the northwestern coast of Lake Superior.”

Is it a question of what is more important? Is the answer to this question dependent on the time horizon? Where are the best places to get our metals that each of us use? These types of questions we wrestle with as a community, and of course there are no easy answers. For us that value wilderness and lakes, we want to protect the quality of these valuable places and the risks associated with the mining are not worth it. For miners and would-be-miners, they wish to provide a means to support their family and enjoy the woods and lakes for recreation. They too do not do not want to destroy the quality of the lakes and wilderness. For the company, they wish to produce profits for the benefit of the CEO, other corporate cadgers, and shareholders. They don't wish to jeopardize those profits; however, the quality of the lakes and wilderness that remains after the extraction of precious metals is not important. 

The Fight for Wisconsin’s Soul→

Dan Kaufman, writing for the New York Times:

“WISCONSIN has been an environmental leader since 1910, when the state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment promoting forest and water conservation. Decades later, pioneering local environmentalists like Aldo Leopold and Senator Gaylord Nelson, who founded Earth Day in 1970, helped forge the nation’s ecological conscience.

But now, after the recent passage of a bill that would allow for the construction of what could be the world’s largest open-pit iron ore mine, Wisconsin’s admirable history of environmental stewardship is under attack.”

 Credit: Azael Meza

Once you start down the dark path of discounting environmental standards, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

Water or sulfide mining: Which is more valuable?→

Clint Jurgens and Mary Ann Jurgens, writing for MinnPost:

“When evaluating the impact of the proposed copper-nickel mines like PolyMet and Twin Metals on the natural resources of Minnesota, regulators, political leaders, and the public should consider the value of water as a natural, replenished resource.

The target of copper-nickel mining companies is an ore formation called the Duluth Complex, which lies in the middle of some of most beautiful and enjoyable lakes, streams and forests in the world. The problem with the proposed mining is that these ores are embedded in sulfide rocks. Unfortunately, the process of mining and recovering metals from sulfide ore has a long and sordid history of water pollution.”

Brian Hoffman

From ore to oil, get it now and use it up as quick as you can. Why is it that is seems like our species lives for the moment without regard to future generations?

Report highlights development threats on Canadian watershed→

Hannah Hoag, reporting for Nature:

“Without better governance, a robust science programme and stronger regulations for extractive industries and hydroelectric developments, Canada’s massive Mackenzie River basin could continue to face destroyed landscapes and massive bills for environmental clean-ups, an international panel of experts warns in a report issued today.

The Mackenzie River is the longest river in Canada, pouring 10.3 million litres of fresh water, the equivalent of four Olympic swimming pools, into the Arctic Ocean per second. Its ecosystems are mostly intact. They provide breeding habitat for migratory birds and include wetlands, boreal forest and carbon dioxide–absorbing peat lands, but they are at risk under warming climate scenarios and natural-resource development.”