Are You Worried About Sulfide Mining?
If you’re like many people then you have enough things on your plate to worry about and you don’t need another item to be concerned about. There are so many battles to fight when it comes to protecting the environment and especially the BWCA. Emissions that affect air quality, cell phone towers that can be seen from within the BWCA and most recently sulfide mining proposed near the Boundary Waters have people up in arms.
There’s a bill that has been introduced in Congress that would open up land in the Superior National Forest to mining. The bill claims to help protect the Boundary Waters by swapping land within the BWCA with land outside of the BWCA supposedly to protect the BWCA. However that land is already protected by being surrounded by the BWCA.
I don’t think I believe Chip Cravaak, the guy who introduced the bill, wants what is best for the Boundary Waters. I encourage you to read about it and what the implications would be for the Boundary Waters and then decide if you are worried about it enough to do something about it.
Protect Superior National Forest from Exploitation as a Sulfide-Mining District
Mining special interests and their political supporters want to:
- Open up 86,000 or more acres of Superior National Forest to create a huge sulfide mining district.
- Remove environmental protections and the requirement for independent appraisals to protect taxpayers.
- Allow this exchange of federal lands without disclosing which homes, businesses, resorts, lakes and recreational areas would be impacted by minerals exploitation.
- Deny citizens and tribes a voice in these decisions about public lands.
Please ask the Minnesota congressional delegation to oppose Congressman Chip Cravaak’s signature bill, HR 5544, and any attempt to introduce or enact a bill like it in the Senate.