While attending the University of Minnesota Duluth and completing Air Force ROTC during the 1980s, we occasionally had the opportunity to visit with the Air National Guard’s 148th Fighter Wing in Duluth. In those days, the former Soviet Union was our primary adversary.
Today, it’s Russia and China. As 148th Wing Commander Col. Nathan Aysta said in the Sept. 22 News Tribune , China “threatens” the current world order.
As most Minnesotans know, a foreign-owned mining company, Twin Metals (owned by Antofagasta, a Chilean mining conglomerate), wants to open a sulfide-ore mine in northern Minnesota, in the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and then sell the ore to China for processing. Yes, the same China that threatens the current world order.
In fact, as explained by John Adams , a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, in an opinion piece in December, China currently dominates the production and processing of minerals and metals essential to manufacturing technologies. However, that’s starting to change, he added.
“From the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to the Inflation Reduction Act — and even the invocation of the Defense Production Act — Congress and the Biden administration are working feverishly to near-shore mineral production and processing, and to also ramp up secure, responsible supply chains,” Gen. Adams wrote.
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Appropriately, the key word there is “responsible.”
Placing a potentially watershed-ruining sulfide-ore mine in the same northern Minnesota watershed as the BWCAW is not responsible. Most Minnesotans agree. As detailed in a story in the Oct. 22 News Tribune , “New mines in Northeastern Minnesota have not enjoyed majority support in the state in recent years, with a 2020 Minnesota Public Radio/Star Tribune poll showing 60% of Minnesotans opposing new projects near the Boundary Waters.”
In addition, the clean water advocacy group WaterLegacy added in December, “Copper-nickel mining in Minnesota would yield 1% or less of copper and nickel and leave behind 99% or more in sulfide mining tailings waste and waste rock. Is this metal worth the waste, contamination of our water, and destruction of our wetlands and forests? … Clean water is truly irreplaceable — the source of life itself. Benjamin Franklin’s quote from 1746 still rings true: ‘When the well is dry, we know the worth of water’.”
The potential for watershed-ruining impacts from sulfide-ore mining is so well known that a survey by the University of Minnesota-Morris showed that 23% of residents in townships in the Ely area would be likely to move away if copper mining were permitted in the same watershed as the Boundary Waters. That’s according to a May 23 Minnesota Reformer commentary by wilderness advocate Becky Rom.
Regarding the growing threat from China, in an August 2021 News Tribune Opinion piece , “Support for Twin Metals is support for Chinese aggression,” I noted that, “During recent years, one of our most potent military and economic adversaries has been China, a country with a growing force of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. … Potentially allowing a foreign company to mine sulfide-ore in the Boundary Waters watershed, then turn around and sell our natural resources to China, potentially helping it build more ICBMs that will likely be pointed at us: Truth truly is stranger — and more dangerous — than fiction.”
And in the words of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers President and CEO Land Tawney, in the winter 2020 Backcountry Journal, “There has never been a copper/sulfide mine that hasn’t leached. Never. Right now, the future of the Boundary Waters hangs in the balance. … There shall be no mine here … not ever … not on BHA’s watch.”
David Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and formerly of Grand Rapids, is a former Air Force officer and the founder and former chairman of Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (backcountryhunters.org). He's the author of "Hunting for Experience II: Tales of Hunting & Habitat Conservation." In 2014, he was recognized by Field & Stream as a "Hero of Conservation.” He wrote this for the News Tribune.
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