State law demands Boundary Waters protection but state rules leave the Wilderness vulnerable
On Wednesday, June 24, Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, the lead organization in the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, filed a lawsuit challenging state rules that leave the Boundary Waters vulnerable to damage from sulfide ore copper mining. Multiple peer-reviewed scientific reports, as well as the 2016 Record Of Decision by the US Forest Service, determined that sulfide-ore copper mining in the watershed of the Wilderness is simply incompatible with the Boundary Waters and would do irreparable harm.
“Both state and federal law recognize that the Boundary Waters is among the most precious of all of America’s many natural wonders,” said Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters Executive Director Tom Landwehr, “and yet state rules allow for one of America’s most toxic industries to set up shop right on it’s very doorstep, where we know toxic pollution will flow directly into its pristine waters and air.”
The lawsuit, filed pursuant to the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act, asks a District Court Judge to require the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to initiate a public process to amend state non-ferrous mining rules that would fully protect the water and air quality, wilderness character, and other irreplaceable natural resources of the Boundary Waters. Specifically, the lawsuit calls on the DNR to prohibit sulfide-ore copper mining and related surface disturbance in the Rainy River-Headwaters. While the northern half of the Rainy River-Headwaters is located within the Boundary Waters, the southern half of the Rainy River-Headwaters is located outside the Wilderness. Degraded and polluted waters in the southern half of the Rainy River-Headwaters would flow north directly into the Wilderness, where no mitigation or remediation is legally allowed or feasible.
“Under the best of circumstances state standards were previously insufficient to protect the Boundary Waters,” continued Landwehr, “but the unprecedented environmental rollbacks at the Federal level have left the Wilderness uniquely vulnerable. We cannot be the generation that gives away this iconic place.”
Editor’s note: This article was edited for length.
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