For Immediate Release
April 9, 2025
Contact: Libby London, 612-227-8407
April 9, 2025
Contact: Libby London, 612-227-8407
Senator Smith’s landmark bill marks nearly fifty years since the U.S. Senate last introduced legislation to protect the Boundary Waters, paving the way for enduring and irrevocable protection of this embattled Wilderness once and for all.
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Tina Smith introduced historic legislation that would permanently protect Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs National Park from the threat of sulfide-ore copper mining.
The Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection Act is the first bill in nearly half a century in the U.S. Senate that broadly protects the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The Act permanently withdraws 225,504 acres of federal land and waters within the Superior National Forest from the federal mining portfolio, banning risky sulfide-ore copper mining in the headwaters of the Wilderness, Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park, and Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota’s only National Park. The bill does not restrict taconite or iron-ore mining anywhere in the State of Minnesota.
“It’s a good and important day for the Boundary Waters. We applaud Senator Smith for her leadership on this issue, and her dedication to the science, the law, and public opinion, all of which resoundingly point to the fact that the Boundary Waters headwaters is no place for copper mining,” said Ingrid Lyons, Executive Director of Save the Boundary Waters. “Amidst incredible division, the Boundary Waters has the power to unite us. Minnesotans, across ideologic, demographic, and geographic lines, want to see this irreplaceable Wilderness protected forever, and thousands of people from all around the country come to experience the Boundary Waters every year, making it the most visited Wilderness in America.”
“Beginning with President Theodore Roosevelt, generation after generation of our state and nation's leaders have wisely taken action to protect the Boundary Waters. Former Vice President Walter Mondale remained devoted to permanently protecting the Boundary Waters, calling it ‘the obligation of each generation.' Today, Senator Smith is building upon this legacy,” said Ingrid Lyons, Executive Director of Save the Boundary Waters.
It’s been nearly half a century since the U.S. Senate last introduced a bill to protect the Boundary Waters, the most recent being the 1978 Boundary Waters Act, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 1, 1978. This was a landmark achievement for Canoe Country.
The dedication of those who fought to protect it over the past century included an outsized number of Minnesotans, including iconic conservation and elected leaders such as Ernest Oberholtzer, Sigurd Olson, Senator Hubert Humphrey, and Former Vice President Mondale.
70 percent of Minnesotans support permanent protection for this priceless Wilderness area. Further, a poll conducted by Change Research of Minnesota midterm voters finds that 7 in 10 (69%) support legislation to permanently protect Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from the threat of sulfide-ore copper mining. The poll of 1,098 2022 Minnesota voters from November 7-10, 2022 found that support for permanent protection ran high across all demographics and every region of the state.
A vast collection of peer-reviewed science shows that if a Twin Metals mine was built along the rivers and streams flowing into the Wilderness, pollution and environmental degradation would be certain. A peer-reviewed independent study from Harvard University shows that protecting the Boundary Waters from proposed sulfide-ore mining would result in dramatically more jobs and more income over a 20-year period.
A 2017 report by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency describes the waters within the mineral withdrawal area as “immaculate." The Report concludes that "the majority of the waterbodies within this watershed had exceptional biological, chemical, and physical characteristics that are worthy of additional protection."
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