ELY- While the U.S. Department of the Interior has banned mineral leases for 20 years on 225,000 acres within the Rainy River watershed on the Superior National Forest, Ely-based Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness (NMW) continues its push for long-term protection for the 4.3 million-acre Quetico-Superior ecosystem.
“We are not done,” said NMW executive director Ingrid Lyons. “Our goal is permanent protection,” she told a packed house at the July 25 meeting of Ely’s Tuesday Group at the Grand Ely Lodge. Lyons and colleague Becky Rom, the national chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, gave a presentation to over 80 Tuesday Group attendees outlining NMW’s strategy to do just that: protect the Boundary Waters for all time. The NMW leads a coalition of over 400 organizations and businesses in the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, an effort that NMW started ten years ago.
Go with the flow
Lyons explained how their efforts to permanently ban mining in the watersheds feeding the Boundary Waters covered an area much bigger than the BWCAW itself. With the help of several maps, Lyons showed that surface and ground water flow through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) starts in the headwaters of the Rainy River basin, in non-wilderness areas to the south. These headwaters incorporate large portions of the Superior National Forest in the Ely and Babbitt areas, including the proposed Twin Metals mine site on the south side of Birch Lake.
The paths of convoluted water flow go north up Birch Lake through White Iron Lake to Fall Lake, then northeast to the Basswood Lake area, where flow turns west-northwest parallel to the U.S.-Canada border, through Quetico Provincial Park and the western half of the BWCAW to Voyageurs National Park.
Lyons explained a common misconception about local water flow. “Many people say, ‘How is this mine going to be a problem (because) all water flows south?’ … We say, no, that’s not true … the core path of pollution (would be) introduced (at the Twin Metals mine) to the waters just upstream of the Boundary Waters.”
Lyons traced the route of potential Twin Metals mine contamination from the south shore of Birch Lake northeast to Basswood Lake, where flow turns west and heads for International Falls. “Where would that pollution go? We found that it would go up this chain (of lakes) into Basswood, up into Quetico, and all the way up, over, yonder, and beyond.”
Five-part strategy
Rom outlined NMW’s strategy to permanently protect the Boundary Waters from all future Minnesota mining activities. That strategy, which has been in play for several years already, has five parts:
1. Deny and cancel the two federal mining leases in the Rainy River watershed. The leases were the only federal leases within the Superior National Forest.
2. Withdraw all federal lands within Boundary Waters watersheds from availability for mineral leasing for 20 years.
3. Pass federal legislation to permanently ban mining on federal lands in watersheds that feed the Boundary Waters.
4. Change Minnesota’s nonferrous mining regulations to ban mining in the Boundary Waters.
5. Pass state legislation to permanently ban mining on state lands in the BWCAW watershed.

Rom related how the first two objectives in the NMW strategy have already been achieved after a decade of effort.
“When we started (ten years ago),” Rom said, “our goal was to (convince) the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that they needed to conserve the environment (of the BWCAW). And if they did, they would deny the renewal of the (Twin Metals) leases.”
Rom went on to explain how the first objective had to be done twice. While the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) refused to renew the two leases in 2016, the Trump Administration overturned the 2016 USFS decision in 2019, undoing a hard-won victory for the NMW. Then the Biden Administration determined the leases were unlawfully renewed in January 2022.
The group’s second objective was achieved in January when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland banned mineral leases for approximately 225,504 acres of the Superior National Forest. Rom called Haaland’s action “the most significant conservation measure protecting the Boundary Waters in 45 years, since the passage of the 1978 Boundary Waters Wilderness Act.”
Holding the line
With the first two objectives accomplished, the NMW has much yet to do: the remaining three strategic objectives plus ongoing efforts to preserve their first two victories, both of which are being contested in court.
“Twin Metals didn’t like all that stuff I just described,” Rom added, “so they brought a lawsuit in federal district court … And we intervened. We are five conservation groups and 10 businesses … the lawsuit challenges the cancellation of the federal mineral leases, challenges the denial of all (Twin Metal’s) applications, and challenges the rejection of (Twin Metal’s) mine plan.”
Both the Department of Justice, representing the USFS and BLM, and NMW and its allies have separately filed motions in the Twin Metals lawsuit to have the case dismissed.
“(We) filed motions to dismiss the federal lawsuit,” Rom explained, “mainly because these kinds of claims belong in the Court of Claims. You can’t force the federal government to have a contract with you. And if you are alleging breach of contract, which is basically what Twin Metals is doing, then you have a claim for damages and you go to the Court of Claims. Now Twin Metals never had a mine, so I would say its damages are zero—so good luck with that. We’re optimistic that the court will dismiss this lawsuit.”
Rom also described the actions of Minnesota Congressman Pete Stauber in introducing both a resolution and a bill into Congress which would overturn the mineral lease ban put into place by Secretary Haaland. She also described her experience in testifying in May in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, which Stauber chairs. This subcommittee meeting was covered in detail in the May 5 edition of the Timberjay.
Rom played a video clip of highlights from the subcommittee testimony. Afterward, she concluded with one of those facts that’s stranger than fiction: “When I got on my plane to fly home that night, they seated me right next to Pete Stauber. So, I sat down, I was on the window. He was in the middle. ‘I was stranded,’ he said. ‘Becky, this was the only seat that was available.’”
Rom did not describe what she and Stauber discussed on the flight.
Looking ahead
Both Rom and Lyons discussed their efforts to achieve protections for the Boundary Waters at both the federal and state levels, given that the state owns a significant portion of the land in the areas upstream of the BWCAW. Even as they work in Washington to win a sulfide mining ban on all federal lands in BWCAW watersheds, they are working simultaneously in St. Paul to achieve similar protections for state lands.
Rom explained that was important because the state has waffled at times on protecting the BWCAW from mining.
“In 2017, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) did a water assessment of the Rainy River headwaters and what it found … was that the water quality was exceptional,” Rom pointed out. Then she described how MPCA ducked its responsibility to enforce both federal and state laws to protect the BWCAW, and “took this hot potato of copper nickel mining and threw it back to the (Minnesota) Department of Natural Resources (DNR).” According to Rom, this kind of buck-passing would be resolved by clarifying Minnesota’s own environmental regulations and backing those up with a state law preventing copper-nickel mining in watersheds feeding the BWCAW.
“We have (strategic goals) three, four and five yet to go. So, unfortunately folks, we’re still in it for a while,” Rom summarized.
Rom capped her presentation with an update on the lawsuit the NMW filed in June against the DNR, contesting that a recent May 31 ruling by the agency inadequate to protect the BWCAW, as described in the July 7 edition of the Timberjay.