April 28 Update: The Senate voted 50-49 to overturn the 20-year mining ban protecting Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from mining, and President Trump signed the resolution to overturn the ban.
Republicans, guided by the Project 2025 blueprint, may have dealt a blow to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on the Superior National Forest in Minnesota. Using a dubious legal tactic, the GOP has opened the door to a mining operation that will pollute the pristine waters of the National Forest System’s most-visited wilderness area. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) has been around since 1996. Its enactment created an expedited process for Congress to overturn agency rules within certain parameters. To overturn such a rule, Congress must initiate a resolution within 60 days. If the resolution passes, the President’s signature makes it so. At this writing, the resolution is headed to the Senate floor.
The “rule” that Republicans may have now overturned is Public Land Order 7917, signed by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in 2023. The first problem with this action is that a public land order has never before been considered a “rule” under the CRA. Secondly, the order was implemented three years ago. Haaland’s order withdrew more than 225,000 acres on the Superior National Forest from mineral leasing for 20 years. (Mineral rights are the purview of the Interior Department, even when the minerals lie beneath national forest land.)
Rescinding the Biden-era rule roles out the red carpet for Twin Metals Minnesota to build and operate an industrial sulfide-ore mining operation on the Superior National Forest upstream from Boundary Waters. Twin Metals is a subsidiary of Antofagasta plc — a Chilean-based mining group and one of the world’s largest copper producers. Mining sulfide ores requires blasting rock from underground to extract the metal-bearing ore, which comprises less than 1% of the rock. When the blasted rock is exposed air, the sulfide minerals oxidize and combine with water to create sulfuric acid, which then leeches heavy metals into the water, spreading toxic contamination downstream.
Twin Metals Minnesota is listed on the corporation’s website as an “underground mining project, which holds copper, nickel/cobalt, and PGM deposits in north-eastern Minnesota.” The “planned project … envisages mining and processing 18,000 tonnes of ore per day for 25 years to produce three separate concentrates – copper, nickel/cobalt and PGM.”
Copper, nickel and cobalt are valuable metals, but PGM, or Platinum Group Metal, “typically includes six closely related metals” that are often found together in mineral deposits. These six metals are Platinum, Palladium, Rhodium, Iridium, Osmium, and Ruthenium. As of this writing, spot prices for these PGMs are:
- Platinum — $2,059/ounce
- Palladium — $1,538.15/ounce
- Rhodium — $10,450.00/ounce
- Iridium — $7,900/ounce
- Osmium — $43,644/ounce
- Ruthenium — $1,750/ounce
Despite the demand for and value of these metals, local communities currently rely on $17 million in annual revenue from an outdoor recreation economy that will be harmed by mining operations, along with clean air, clean water, and irreplaceable wilderness qualities.
Photo: Alpine Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Superior National Forest, Minnesota.
