Feds issue draft assessment that could doom Minnesota mine

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The U.S. Forest Service issued a draft environmental assessment Thursday to lay the foundation for a proposed 20-year moratorium on copper-nickel mining upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. “The proposed mineral withdrawal aims to prevent further negative environmental impacts from future mining operations,” the Forest Service said in its announcement of the draft. “It also evaluates the impacts of future mining on important social, cultural, and economic values.” Democratic U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who represents a St. Paul-area district and is sponsoring legislation to permanently ban copper-nickel mining in that area, welcomed the study, as did environmental groups that have been fighting the Twin Metals project for years. “Joe Biden has made his position clear: he’d rather have foreign and child slave labor produce minerals instead of American union miners working to deliver Minnesota’s mineral wealth to the nation and world using the best environmental and labor standards.” The Forest Service first proposed the moratorium in the final days of the Obama administration, which canceled Twin Metals’ two federal mineral rights leases.