Republicans Vote To Destroy Boundary Waters In Giveaway To China’s AI

The most popular Wilderness in the country will become a dumping ground for sulfuric acid

Traitors. Republicans in the Senate just voted to permit the construction of a heavily polluting mine in the headwaters for Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The region’s ecosystem will be destroyed, taking with it $1.1 billion in annual economic activity, 17,000 jobs, and one of the last unspoiled slices of nature left in this country. What does America get in return? Nothing. Profits will go to Chile, the copper will go to China where it will help that country race head of us in its AI buildout, and any jobs created will go to workers from outside the state and country. Polluted water will also flow into Voyageurs National Park, Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park, and Lake Superior.

This is a developing story, I will build this story out further throughout the day. Check back for more.

“The Boundary Waters is a national treasure, and Americans visit it by the hundreds of thousands each year to enjoy the freedom to explore its pristine waterways and forests,” states Abby Tinsley, senior vice president of conservation programs at The Wilderness Society. “Today’s vote will expose the wilderness area’s headwaters to toxic mining waste forever, using a reckless and unprecedented tactic that puts countless more cherished public lands at risk. The Senate just bulldozed over local voices and science-based management in order to give America’s public lands away to a foreign mining conglomerate. Future generations deserve better, and our fight to protect this special place is far from over.”

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness covers 1.1 million acres of northern Minnesota, including 1,175 lakes, and over 1,200 miles of rivers and streams. A Congressionally-designated Wilderness, no road construction, motorized equipment, or commercial activity are permitted.

165,000 people visit each year, bringing with them $1.1 billion in economic activity that supports 17,000 jobs.

The primary draw is the area’s water, which is so famously pure that you can drink it right out of the lakes as you paddle across them. That water supports the kind of abundant populations of smallmouth bass, walleye, lake trout, and northern pike that no longer exist elsewhere in the lower 48 states.

But that pure water may also be the area’s undoing.

Water in the BWCA is so famously pure that it lacks the mineral content that could buffer sulfuric acid and reduce its harmful impacts. So, as that slowly enters the area’s rivers, lakes, and streams through mining waste, it will spread unabated. A “forever” pollutant, that sulfuric acid will stick around for centuries. Once the mine begins operation, no one alive today, and none of our children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren will ever again experience an unpolluted Boundary Waters.

That sulfuric acid will prove particularly harmful to the area’s fish populations, and the ecosystem they support. Sulfuric acid lowers the pH of the water sources it enters, and that then damages the gills of fish causing respiratory failure—fish will literally drown. The toxic aluminum it will leach from soil will disrupt fish reproduction, and reduce their food sources, which will likely lead to population collapse.

Sulfuric acid will also render the area’s water unsafe to drink, and its fish unsafe to eat. That will then impact species further up the food chain like black bears, wolves, and eagles.

There is not a possibility that sulfuric acid will enter the Boundary Waters, and then Voyageurs, Quetico, and Lake Superior, there is a certainty. Plans for the mine involve dumping hundreds of millions of tons of mine waste on the banks of the Rainy River, which flows for just a few miles before entering BWCA. There is no technology capable of preventing sulfuric acid from the mine waste from entering the Rainy River.

Once mine construction is complete, and extraction of the sulfide ore begins, the exposure of that material to water and oxygen will begin, forming the sulfuric acid that will then slowly leak into the Boundary Waters. Every day that the mine remains active, the pollution it creates will increase.

That copper sulfide mine will be built by Twin Metals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chilean minerals conglomerate Antofagasta. Profits will then go to Antofagasta’s owners, the Chilean billionaire Luksic family.

Antofagasta has already struck a deal to ship copper extracted from the mine to China for smelting. It will then be sold on the Chinese market. Demand for copper is booming in China as that country rushes to build out is renewable energy infrastructure in an effort to race ahead of the United States in the roll out of compute capacity in support of artificial intelligence.

According to Antofagasta’s own accounting, the mine will take about three years to build, at which point it will generate $1.2 billion in annual revenue, supporting 750 jobs. An Antofagasta representative has gone on-record stating that because there are no other copper mines in the state, that employment will be sourced from outside Minnesota and the United States.

“The short-sightedness of this incredibly disappointing decision is staggering,” states Lukas Leaf, executive director of Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters. “By overturning the mining moratorium in the Rainy River Watershed, our elected officials have put the interests of a few above the benefit of many. including the future generations we are fighting for. Paving the way for the Twin Metals mine does little, if anything, to satisfy the America First agenda, and is a direct assault on our outdoor heritage and public lands nationwide.”

While numerous lawsuits will invariably be fought, even the people filing them tell me they expect Antofagasta to begin construction as soon as the President signs this bill into law. Never say never, but I do not expect a legal remedy to become possible until such a time as Republicans are removed from power.

One unintended consequence here is that this vote—which uses the Congressional Review Act to disapprove a USFS management plan for the first time—will shift all of that agency’s management plans and the thousands of permits for commercial activity issued through them into being “rules” that require Congressional approval, and which cannot be replaced by anything “substantially” similar. So, while reports from a couple weeks ago that the administration was “dismantling” the Forest Service were wildly false, this vote in the Senate will, in actual reality, have the effect of dismantling USFS’s ability to conduct business for the foreseeable future.

Chile’s Antofagasta has more than enough money to endure endless court battles. America’s independent ranchers, entrepreneurial energy extractors, and small logging companies will be the ones who feel the impacts of this vote the most. So even while Republican senators have just stolen America’s natural heritage in order to give China an advantage in the race to roll out artificial intelligence, they have also caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to the American economy.

The purpose of the Republican party is to steal from working Americans and give to billionaires. Apparently that includes foreign billionaires, even ones profiting from the success of our geopolitical adversaries. Never before has Republican disdain for America’s future been more stark.

A journalist with more than two decades of experience working around the world, Wes Siler is here to cut through the outrage and disinformation to bring you the factual, insightful, actionable reporting you need to understand what’s going on. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports this reporting, and buys personal access to Wes, who will help you save money on gear, plan outdoor adventures, and prepare for real life, and who promises he’s less salty in real life than he sometimes comes across as on the Internet.

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