Our stewardship obligations still require a no on this mine, this location

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When I was writing about copper mining’s threat to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters five years ago, I drew inspiration from another natural gem to its south.

Frontenac State Park hugs a portion of Goodhue County’s Mississippi shoreline and includes a breathtaking overlook of Lake Pepin and its stair-step bluffs. The vista and the hiking paths keep me coming back. But there’s another reason it holds a place in my heart.

Perched near the overlook is a plaque honoring John Hauschild, a southern Minnesota farm boy turned prosperous insurance executive. In 1956, he donated land to what would become Frontenac State Park. As the plaque notes, Hauschild was “profoundly aware of the spectacular view from this site and, through his generosity, has made it possible for you to enjoy.”

Those words serve as a reminder not only of special places, but that those who came before us had the foresight to protect them.

That long-term vision and commitment to the collective good fills me with gratitude. But it also inspires a soul-searching question: What is my own generation doing to protect other special places for those yet to come? Regrettably, that question became even more difficult to answer after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in November.

Environmental stewardship is a responsibility inherent in good citizenship. This moral obligation didn’t end with Theodore Roosevelt, Minnesota’s wilderness philosopher Sigurd Olson, Everglades protector Marjory Stoneman Douglas and other last-century conservationists no longer with us. There’s still important work to do.

As crowded national parks like Yellowstone attest, Americans treasure their natural spaces, even as our growing population strains the boundaries of our current parks and preserves. Other special places are under threat. Sadly, northern Minnesota’s beloved Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) is a prime example.

The BWCA is a place so pristine that canoers can fill a cup with the water outside their vessel and drink it. It’s now entering its fourth presidential administration as a political football because of northeast Minnesota’s geological riches: reserves of copper, nickel and other precious metals.

Former President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden, both Democrats, have sought to protect the BWCA and its headwaters from copper-nickel mining, which is notorious worldwide for the environmental devastation it leaves behind. The BWCA’s risk from any runoff is even more acute due to its pure water, which lacks naturally occurring minerals abundant in other locations that mitigate pollution the same way that Rolaids or Tums quell indigestion.

In early 2023, Biden took a commendable step that effectively put a 20-year moratorium on copper-nickel mining on 225,000 acres of federally owned land in the BWCA watershed. In contrast, President Trump spent his first term pandering to the Chilean billionaire family that controls Antofagasta, a mining conglomerate that owns Twin Metals Minnesota and seeks to open an underground copper-nickel mine near the BWCA.

The proposed mine site is not inside the BWCA, but it’s on its doorstep and at the edge of a lake that drains into the watery wilderness. In July, Trump made clear at a St. Cloud rally his intent to swiftly greenlight the Antofagasta mine. “We will end that ban in, what do you think, about 10 minutes?” Trump vowed last summer.

He’s now in a position to start that process, with Republicans controlling the U.S. House and Senate after the election. Last spring, the U.S. House passed a bill to rescind the 20-year moratorium on mining in the BWCA headwaters. Rep. Pete Stauber, who represents northeast Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District, was the lead author. Because Democrats controlled the Senate, Stauber’s reckless legislation went nowhere after its House passage, but the Senate failsafe is gone.

These developments are grim, but there are reasons to remain hopeful:

⋅ Stauber has to reintroduce his bill because a new congressional session starts in 2025. Its previous success doesn’t guarantee passage, especially with the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

⋅ The U.S. House has an eloquent new BWCA advocate in Kelly Morrison, who will succeed Rep. Dean Phillips in the west metro’s Third Congressional District. Morrison previously served in the Minnesota Legislature and was the lead author on a bill that would have provided durable state copper-mining protections in BWCA headwaters. Rep. Betty McCollum, a fierce BWCA protector who represents the east metro’s Fourth Congressional District, also won re-election.

⋅ Minnesota’s two U.S. senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, remain in office and wield increasing influence. They understand this issue and its stakes.

⋅ A scientific analysis of copper mining’s risk to the BWCA, one that the Trump administration halted and whose preliminary findings it tried to keep secret, was completed under the Biden administration. Its findings: Contamination is a risk, even with measures designed to head off downstream pollution. These findings should make it more difficult for a federal agency to roll back the 20-year moratorium.

⋅ North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of the Interior, an agency with a critical role in protecting federal land, is competent and has lauded Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation ethos.

⋅ Organizations like Minnesota’s Save the Boundary Waters, which has led a savvy legal fight against the Antofagasta mine, are committed for the long haul.

Mining advocates will contend that the nation needs copper, especially as the transition continues to renewable energy. I don’t disagree, but that doesn’t entitle us to irresponsibly cast aside our stewardship obligations to future generations. We need to strike a sensible balance, and that requires recognition that mining in some places is far more risky than in others. This particular mine site, perched upstream from a fragile watery wilderness, is one of them.