MINNEAPOLIS — The Biden administration on Wednesday canceled two minerals leases for the proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine in northern Minnesota, likely killing a project widely condemned for being too close to the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The huge underground mine would have tapped major reserves of copper and nickel, minerals key to a low-carbon economy, but also posed serious risks of contaminating the many waters surrounding it with sulfide and toxic heavy metals. Polls showed many Minnesotans did not support creating a heavy industrial operation at a gateway to the country's most visited wilderness.
The boreal outback covers more than 1 million acres, a maze of lakes and streams and wetlands where motorized boats are not allowed.
The U.S. Department of Interior filed its legal determination Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., where a lawsuit challenging the leases was on appeal. The two minerals leases were essential for Twin Metals, a subsidiary of Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, to develop the mine — its first major effort outside Chile.
"The Department of the Interior takes seriously our obligations to steward public lands and waters on behalf of all Americans. We must be consistent in how we apply lease terms to ensure that no lessee receives special treatment," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a press release. "After careful legal review, we found the leases were improperly renewed in violation of applicable statutes and regulations, and we are taking action to cancel them."
Twin Metals said the decision was politically motivated and vowed to fight it.
"The federal government's reversal of its position on the mineral leases that Twin Metals Minnesota and its predecessor companies have held for more than 50 years is disappointing, but not surprising given the series of actions the administration has taken to try and shut the door on copper-nickel mining in northeast Minnesota," the company said in a statement. "We will challenge this attempt to stop our project and defend our valid existing mineral rights. We expect to prevail."
Brian Hanson, chairman of Jobs for Minnesotans, a coalition of business and labor groups who support the mines, called the decision "disheartening."
"We're outraged by this action," Hanson said in an interview. "It's the latest in a recent series of attacks on the accessibility of critical minerals and people of northeast Minnesota, for that matter. It doesn't make sense to make this kind of decision in the face of a country needing to deal with climate change and needing strategic minerals to do so.
"These are jobs. These are our livelihoods."
Minnesota's congressional delegation has been divided on the opening Minnesota up to hard-rock mining. Republican Rep. Pete Stauber, a staunch mining advocate, said the decision will have "devastating impacts" on the country, and Minnesota.
"Let me be clear: President Biden is choosing to ban mining. He's choosing foreign sourced minerals, including mines that use child slave labor, over our own domestic, union workforce that follows the best labor and environmental standards in the world," Stauber said in a statement. "I saw this coming from day one, which is why I was vocal in my opposition to Secretary Haaland's nomination as Interior Secretary, as well as the Director of Bureau of Land Management, Tracy Stone-Manning. Joe Biden chose a cabinet full of the most extreme anti-mining activists. I choose to fight for our northern Minnesota miners."
Elated environmental groups hailed the decision as victory for science, water and the communities of northern Minnesota.
Becky Rom, national chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, called the decision "a return of the rule of law."
Chris Knopf, head of the Friends of The Boundary Waters Wilderness, noted that the victory comes on the permit opener for the Boundary Waters.
"This is great victory on a day that everyone is getting their permits to celebrate the clean water and experiencing the wilderness," Knopf said, adding that he heard the news as he was completing his own permit application.
Democrat Rep. Betty McCollum, issued a statement saying, "Some places are simply too special to mine.
"For the better part of a decade, I have been fighting to protect the pristine 1.1 million acres of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) from toxic mining pollution. The Biden administration's cancellation of two Twin Metals leases that threatened this watershed is a rejection of the deeply flawed and politically motivated process under the Trump administration and a victory for sound science and protecting a precious and irreplaceable natural resource."
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