by Jessica Goad
Yesterday the House of Representatives voted 225-189 to pass a bill authorizing a controversial land transfer that would almost certainly result in the mining of public lands in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest. These lands have numerous other values like hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, and recreation.
At issue is a bill introduced by Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN), called the “Minnesota Education Investment and Employment Act” (H.R. 5544). The bill would give 86,000 acres of state-owned “school trust” lands within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to the federal government in exchange for similar but unspecified acreage in Superior National Forest outside of the wilderness area.
This bill is problematic on a number of levels. First, many of the lands within the Superior National Forest that would be transferred to the state have natural resources like sulfide ore which contains metals like copper and nickel. Transferring these mineral-rich lands to the state would almost certainly result in their being mined, because the Minnesota state constitution dictates that these school trust lands be utilized for “maximum long-term economic return.” As the Minneapolis Star Tribune editorialized:
This land swap isn’t about Minnesota’s hard-pressed schoolchildren. It’s about converting forest land to mining.
Craavack’s bill would also bypass the federal environmental review process that allows for an assessment of the impacts that the land exchange and resulting mining would have on the water and air quality of the Boundary Waters. In fact, the bill goes so far as to exempt the land exchange from the National Environmental Policy Act and its public review provisions by classifying it as “not a major federal action” which would be subject to NEPA.
Sulfide mining operations can be dirty and risky if not done properly. They can pollute rivers and streams, cause acid mine drainage, and tear up landscapes.
And yet Cravaack claimed in an editorial that “…this bill would not take away a single environmental protection or regulation.”
A number of sportsmen groups are opposed to the bill because mining by its very nature blocks access to prime wildlife habitat and hunting and fishing. As David Lien of the group Minnesota Backcountry Hunters and Anglers wrote:
Over 100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed the Superior National Forest as a place “reserved from settlement” and “set apart as a public reservation, for the use and benefit of the people.” If HR 5544 passes, that will no longer be the case for 86,000 acres of public lands in the [Superior National Forest].
Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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One of the worst environmental atrocities out West was the clearcutting of most of the country’s remaining old growth forests after World War II. This happened on National Forest land, and was a consequence of NAHB and Weyerhauser lobbying in DC. Corruption was rampant. Weyerhauser was not punished for additional illegal logging, and the response from Oregon Forestry was to fire their enforcement team. Tim Hermach of Native Forest Council was the only “Green” organization who put up a fight:
http://www.forestcouncil.org/
Thanks, Jessica, for being on top of the latest public land atrocity in Minnesota. Keep after them.
Cravaack is another right wing stooge doing what he’s being told to do by mining interests.
Mining pretty much destroyed the pristine Iron Range during the ’50′s.
Now they want to go after what is perhaps our Nation’s fines wilderness; the BWCA.
~REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER~
Does this need a similar bill in the Senate for it to actually take effect?
Teddy Roosevelt is a concept totally alien to extremist Republicans and Christians. He served in the military, was educated and and educator, and put his dogs inside the car, had a son killed in war, and would have survived being shot by a proud NRA member and listener of Looter Limbaugh.
It’s time for people to stand up and say NO!! Write, call, speak out!!!
Be it mountain top removal,fracking, tarsands mining…etc. The losers on this zero sum game of corporation verses nature has to stop! We are the problem and we need to be the solution, anything less is unconscionable. Collectively we we need to fix this, but it means ALL HANDS ON DECK!
The “maximum long-term economic return” would be guaranteed by leaving the land undisturbed. It’s the SHORT-TERM economic gain that is luring the mining companies and their bought-off Republican mouthpieces to irreversibly damage these forests.
Sasparilla, yes there would have to be a Senate compnion bill, and Senator Franken is strongly considering introducing one. While it would likely be “less horrible” than the GOP House version, it would likely expedite and mandate this land trade. Otherwise, there would be no point in a bill. The exchange should be done, if at all, through the agency process, which would include NEPA environmental analysis and public involvement and the federal appraisal standards to ensure the public interest is protected. Cravaack’s bill rewrites the appraisal method, and US taxpayers/citizens would be the victims. A big problem, and an impetus for even the Dems to support this, is that it came out of Democrats in the MN legislature. So BOTH parties must hear from those who oppose it.
The BWCA has been a refuge for me of more than 40 years. I’ve taken untold numbers of high school students there to see “how it was when God created it before we got in there & messed it up!”
I can’t believe this. FOr years the Federal Government has been after this pristine wildeness.
It’s time for another revolution
Absolutely. Humanity must rise up against the destroyers, before it is irrevocably too late. Don’t worry, the Right intend to meet any concerted, effective, resistance with maximum repressive force, but this is a fight to the death. Moralistic prevarication will soon be washed away by the tide of events.
We are having the same problem in Utah with the state trust lands. In our community they want to allow a phosphate mine over a natural, pure spring that provides 90% of the water to the community. Go figure. We just get fingers pointing at each other and nothing changes.