ELY, MN-- Last week the Star Tribune reported on a letter the State of Minnesota sent to federal officials requesting the cancelled U.S. Forest Service study and underlying research on the impact of sulfide-ore copper mining on Forest Service lands near the Boundary Waters. The study was part of a proposed ban on sulfide-ore copper mining near the Boundary Waters, which was previously deemed by the U.S. Forest too risky to be done so near the fragile Wilderness.
Federal officials have refused to hand over the study despite multiple requests from Congress, the public, and the press. Sixty pages of redactions were finally released recently but only after legal action by the The Wilderness Society. The study and refusal to hand over its contents have become emblematic of the Trump Administration's rush to ruin America’s most popular Wilderness at the behest of Chilean billionaire, Twin Metals’ owner, and landlord to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Andronico Luksic.
From the story:
Minnesota regulators have asked the Trump administration to provide the research from an aborted federal study about the impacts of copper mining on the Superior National Forest and its Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, within 30 days.
The federal study and its materials have been kept secret in defiance of multiple demands for their release, including from U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., chairwoman of a key funding subcommittee.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture abruptly canceled the Forest Service study in September 2018, after nearly two years of work, saying the analysis “did not reveal new scientific information” and was a “roadblock” to minerals exploration in the Rainy River Watershed.
What has been made public — 60 pages of redaction, with blacked-out pages that say “deliberative process privilege” in red — was released to the Wilderness Society only after it sued.
Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Commissioner Sarah Strommen requested the unreleased research in a March 10 letter to Bob Lueckel, regional head of the U.S. Forest Service in Milwaukee.
Strommen asked for “all previously prepared environmental review data and studies related to the previously proposed federal mineral withdrawal project within the Superior National Forest.” That includes information on mineral resources, economic impacts and impacts to the water and wilderness and cultural areas
You can read the full story here.