This weekend the Star Tribune published an editorial calling for the state of Minnesota to halt work on the Twin Metals mining proposal after the state’s request for a cancelled and suppressed federal study on the impact of sulfide-ore copper mining on the Boundary Waters was denied.
The editorial also points out that nearly finalized changes to the Clean Water Act will kneecap the state’s ability to protect its outstanding resources like the Boundary Waters, furnishing more evidence that the regulatory deck is being arranged to push through this disastrous project.
From the editorial:
On March 10, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) formally requested that the U.S. Forest Service share the data. The letter /from DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen cited the agency’s long-standing interest in this information, the data’s “important implications for the people of Minnesota,” and the decision last fall to do a state-level environmental review of Twin Metals. It didn’t take long for the Trump administration to say no. The brusque April 13 response from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, said the study wasn’t finalized, so no findings would be released.
That response is a troubling departure from how agencies traditionally work together even during research’s early stages. “You share draft information all the time,” said Tom Landwehr, a former DNR commissioner who now leads the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, which opposes Twin Metals. “It’s a general practice on these large federal and state projects.”
The response is also insulting to Minnesota scientists and the public, suggesting that they can’t be trusted to interpret data from a nearly completed study. But no one should be fooled by the maneuvering. There’s only one conclusion to draw from the secrecy: Science doesn’t support the project.
You can read the full piece here.