The other day the Star Tribune published an editorial on it’s polling from last week showing that by a 3-1 margin Minnesotans opposed sulfide-ore copper mining near the Boundary Waters. Less than a quarter of Minnesotans supported new mining near the Wilderness. Significantly, responses did not vary greatly between regions of the state, with 54% of Northern Minnesota residents opposed and only 26% in favor. Democrats and Independents overwhelmingly oppose mining near the Boundary Waters while Republicans are split with 39% in favor, 37% opposed, and 24% not sure. This is in line with private polling done over the last several years.
The editorial calls on Minnesota’s elected leaders to act in Minnesotans’ best interests, not the special interests pushing risky mining, like Antofagasta’s Twin Metals Project. A project that not even Twin Metals’ executives can say won’t pose a risk to the Wilderness.
In fact, the editorial warns, those electeds most at risk are those who don’t do enough to protect the Boundary Waters:
In the decadeslong debate over copper mining in Minnesota, conventional political wisdom has been that the issue is an easy one for Republicans and a balancing act fraught with peril for Democrats.
The reasoning: The GOP can embrace the promise of new jobs while Democrats must balance the party base’s environmental concerns with presumed support for mining among voters in northern Minnesota.
But new data from a recently conducted Minnesota Poll turns these staid assumptions on their head, suggesting that state politicians most at risk are those who don’t do enough to protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA). Twin Metals Minnesota, one of two major copper-nickel mines proposed in Minnesota, intends to operate on the beloved preserve’s doorstep and is the only project within its watershed, putting the BWCA’s fragile ecosystem downstream of potential mine pollution.
You can read the full editorial here.