“Permanent protection for the Rainy River Headwaters from the destruction and pollution that would be the inevitable result of copper mining is the vital next task in work that has gone on for more than 100 years to preserve this incomparable region."
- Sally Jewell, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior under President Obama
Local families and business owners have organized a massive national effort to stop a toxic copper mine on the edge of the Boundary Waters, the United States’ most visited Wilderness. They need your help to protect this wild and beautiful place.
During the Obama administration the old, expired mining leases for the proposed Twin Metals copper mine in northeastern Minnesota, on the edge of a pristine wilderness, were terminated and the U.S. Department of the Interior proposed a 20-year ban on such mining in the watershed, an area comprised of sensitive freshwater lakes and precious boreal forest. The Trump administration reversed these decisions and sought to fast-track the mine, favoring the Chilean billionaire family behind Antofagasta, the parent company to Twin Metals.
The fate of this precious wilderness is still in jeopardy.
The Biden-Harris administration has taken the first steps to ban copper mining here and is now taking public input during a national 90-day comment period.
A truly remarkable and utterly unique wild ecosystem
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is the largest National Wilderness Area east of the Rockies & north of the Everglades, covering more than 1.1 million acres within the 3- million-acre Superior National Forest.
This ecosystem contains 20 percent of all the freshwater in the entire National Forest System. The Boundary Waters forms the heart of a trans-national protected area that includes Voyageurs National Park & Quetico Provincial Park in Canada; the wider ecosystem comprises 4.3 million acres of wild land & water critical for people & planet.
This is the most-visited Wilderness in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Millions of people have developed a lifelong love of nature through camping, fishing, paddling, dog sledding, hunting & hiking experiences in this one-of-a-kind Wilderness.
The Boundary Waters’ tranquil lakes, forests, trails & more than 1,200 miles of canoe routes offer unparalleled recreation & critical habitat for fish & wildlife like walleye, northern pike, lake trout, smallmouth bass, wolves, lynx, moose, bears, loons, river otters, bald eagles & osprey. It is also an official Dark Sky Sanctuary — one of only 13 in the world.
Anishinaabe people (also known in this region as Chippewa or Ojibwe) have lived in the area for countless generations and have a deep relationship to these lands and waters. Indigenous people continue to harvest wild rice in the Boundary Waters region and maintain treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather. As sovereign nations, tribes play a central role in protecting the Boundary Waters and have called for its protection.
The existential threat of copper mining
This incredible region is threatened by proposals from foreign mining companies to develop dangerous copper mines. Antofagasta’s Twin Metals seeks to develop a large sulfide-ore copper mine just upstream of the Boundary Waters. Science and history show that this type of mining on lands next to rivers and lakes that flow directly into the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs, and Quetico would inevitably and permanently pollute these areas. Read more from our Science Desk.
Peer-reviewed science proves that pollution from copper mining in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters would permanently damage it and downstream land and waters. Such damage would be permanent because it could not be fixed, mitigated, or remediated.
Because of the risk of permanent damage, the U.S. Forest Service refused to consent to the renewal of the only two federal mineral leases in the Superior National Forest - the Twin Metals federal leases.
The Boundary Waters is also vital for global climate resiliency. Destruction of boreal forest and wetlands for industrial mining would be a double whammy: causing the release of carbon into the atmosphere and the loss of capacity for the land to take up carbon in the future.
Unfortunately, the mining leases were unlawfully reinstated and renewed in 2018 by the Trump administration.
The Trump administration ignored science and the law, not to mention the American people, when it resurrected the mining leases and rushed to allow copper mining next to the Boundary Waters. Instead its actions favored a foreign mining conglomerate owned by a Chilean billionaire who bought a D.C. mansion after the 2016 election and rented it to President Trump’s family and advisors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Americans want to protect the Boundary Waters Wilderness
Thanks to the work of Save the Boundary Waters, protecting this Wilderness is a priority issue for the Biden-Harris Administration and the U.S. Congress. This has created a path to permanently protect the Boundary Waters and, downstream, Canada’s Quetico Park and Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park from the destruction of sulfide-ore copper mining.
Today, the Biden Administration and Congress have renewed opportunities to restore protections and achieve permanency.
The 400+ Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters coalition members have elevated Boundary Waters protections to a top national imperative. The Campaign is informed by successful public lands protection fights elsewhere, like Yellowstone National Park.
Many of the policymakers who determined during the Obama administration that sulfide-ore copper mining was too risky for the Boundary Waters are serving in the Biden Administration; those officials possess a deep well of knowledge about this great Wilderness and the threat presented by mining proposals.
U.S. Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) remains committed to permanent protection and reintroduced her legislation on Earth Day 2021. Passage of this legislation would permanently ban sulfide-ore copper mining of public lands and minerals in the watershed of the Boundary Waters.
U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) has also urged the Biden Administration to initiate the process to ban copper mining for 20 years on federal public lands around the Boundary Waters, a step that was indeed taken in October 2021, kicking off a 90-day public comment period that goes until January 19, 2022. It is vital that everyone who cares about the fate of this precious wild area submit comments during this process.
Also: a historic opportunity to ban copper mining in Minnesota near the Wilderness.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is revisiting state rules that currently allow copper mining in the Boundary Waters watershed and fail to protect this pristine world-class wilderness. It's a very important opportunity for the Boundary Waters because the review could result in a state prohibition of sulfide-ore copper mining in the headwaters of the Wilderness. This process was initiated because Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, the organization that built and leads the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, brought a first-of-its kind lawsuit under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act. Anyone, regardless of whether you live in Minnesota or not, can submit comments to the DNR before midnight on December 9, 2021.
What can you do?