U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) reintroduced a bill on Jan. 21 to ban sulfide-ore copper mining in the Boundary Waters while advocacy groups and University of Minnesota students worry for the land’s future.
McCollum’s bill, the Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act, on its fourth introduction to Congress, would permanently ban pollutive sulfide-ore copper mining from nearly 235,000 acres of land surrounding the Rainy River Watershed in the Superior National Forest, according to the bill’s language.
McCollum said she wants to protect the Boundary Waters because of its uniquely clean freshwater and untouched natural beauty.
“We put value on land, we put value on minerals, we put value on so many things, but when it comes to water we pretty much take it for granted,” McCollum said.
Sulfide-ore copper mining is proven to be an extremely pollutive type of mining, according to Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters. To mine copper, a mining company creates a tailings pile, a pile of toxic sulfuric waste rock left on the surface.
These toxic tailings piles seep sulfuric acid into the surrounding wilderness and pollute the Boundary Waters’ air and water, Lyons said.
“Even though there are mitigation techniques, this industry has never been done without some form of pollution in all of those categories, but most notably water pollution,” Lyons said.
The mining company in this case is Twin Metals Minnesota, owned by Chilean mining company Antofagasta. Since 2022, Antofagasta has spent over $2 million lobbying for the mining industry.
Boundary Waters advocacy organizations’ worries for the area’s future grew after President Donald Trump’s reelection in November. Trump promised he would lift a 20-year mining ban, put in place by former President Joe Biden, to a rally crowd in St. Cloud.
Friends of the Boundary Waters spokesperson Pete Marshall said the organization is preparing for the worst after Trump did not include lifting the mining ban in his slew of first-day executive orders.
“(McCollum’s bill) would end, not an end-end, but it would really seal up this constant back and forth,” Marshall said. “It would give people a lot more assurance and just some time to breathe and just enjoy the boundary waters.”
U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), whose district includes the Boundary Waters, wants to introduce an opposing bill that would open up the Boundary Waters area for sulfide-ore copper mining contracts on the “false” grounds that having a domestic store of copper is important for U.S. national security, McCollum said.
“Antofagasta, when it mines minerals, it takes the minerals out and it ships them to China to be refined and then once refined in China, they’re sold on the global market,” McCollum, a ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Committee which oversees the Department of Defense budget, said. “This does nothing to protect our defense supply chain and there’s other copper mines that we can rely on.”
Cooper Marton, a first-year University student and an officer for the University’s Outdoors Club, said he wants the club to continue going on their annual trip to the Boundary Waters’ pristine wilderness.
“Drilling or mining is completely against everything that it stands for,” Marton, who has been going to summer camp in the Boundary Waters since he was a kid, said. “The whole point is that it’s supposed to be untouched, or as untouched as you can get it to be, and to mine there just completely dismantles that.”
Abi Addink, a fourth-year student and an Outdoors Club officer, said she now feels a sense of urgency to visit the Boundary Waters for the first time.
“What if there was something that was going to happen to the Boundary Waters?” Addink said. “It’s like we got to get there now, you know, sadly as we don’t really know what the future of these natural spaces is going to be.”
McCollum said she does not expect her bill to pass the U.S. House of Representatives in the next two years but believes wholeheartedly in the need to cherish the Boundary Waters nationwide.
“People tend to think of it quite unfortunately as like this is just Minnesota,” McCollum said. “This national treasure and we need to respect it as such.”
