Help shape the future of the BWCAW

Next week, high-ranking members of the Obama administration will be in Minneapolis to hear from Minnesotans about issues affecting our great outdoors and ideas for long-term conservation. This event is being led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and will focus on clean water. Please participate in the listening session and speak up for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness! The event is open to everyone, free registration is required.

Attend the event to tell these important decision-makers how important clean water, the BWCAW and healthy ecosystems are to you. Speak your mind about serious threats to the region, including the dangerous new sulfide mines proposed at the very edges of the wilderness. Remind our public officials that what happens in the Boundary Waters watershed can have serious impacts on the treasured wilderness.

Details:
Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010
4:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Ted Mann Concert Hall
2128 Fourth St. South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(Directions)

Breakout sessions will allow you the chance to make the case for the highest level of protection for the wilderness. We have put together a page of helpful talking points to use when talking about these issues. Click here to download (PDF). Of course, bringing your own ideas is what the event is all about, so feel free to speak your mind!

Whether or not you can make it to the listening session, you can still have a voice in this process. The “America’s Great Outdoors” website has an interactive tool for submitting your ideas, voting for ideas you like, and discussing issues. Please go to the website, create an account, and get involved in the discussion.

Please attend next Wednesday. Click here to register and for additional details.

Nick Coleman writes about cell tower lawsuit

Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman published a smart, thoughtful piece in the Sunday, July 11 newspaper about the Friends’ lawsuit against AT&T Mobility over a proposed 450-foot cell tower at the edge of the Boundary Waters.

In the column, the long-time Twin Cities writer eloquently described the organization’s position regarding the tower, the legal protections of wilderness, and the Friends’ desire to find a solution that can benefit local residents while protecting the integrity of the BWCAW.

The Friends haven’t taken a position against cell phone coverage in the wilderness area. They are arguing only that the plan for a cell tower on a ridge near Fall Lake (the height above the landscape would be about 600 feet) would create a visual intrusion on the wilderness and that they hope to convince Lake County and AT&T to consider alternatives that would serve local customers without changing the wilderness.

This is a reasonable position — one that can be supported by any lover of the woods and waters but that does not brush aside the legitimate interests of local residents. But in a shrill era of “drill, baby drill” (before the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, at any rate), when preservation of the environment is in danger of being swept aside, even reasonable positions can seem like radical ones. But, in the end, environmental groups like the Friends are conservative: Conservation is what they ask.

Keep reading “Connect the wilderness at what cost?“

More environmental review for PolyMet mine proposal

The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the PolyMet sulfide mine proposal in northeastern Minnesota needs more work before moving forward, the responsible government agencies recently announced.

Responding to EPA, Friends, citizens

Many of the areas that are expected to be addressed are concerns raised in February by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In a letter at that time, the EPA ranked the project’s draft EIS as unacceptable and inadequate and said the project should not move forward as proposed.

The EPA criticisms closely aligned with extensive comments submitted by the Friends and other groups. The agency found that the mine’s pollution and environmental threats would be severe and unacceptable and it said that not enough data had been gathered and analysis performed to even fully understand what the impacts would be.

In April and May, the Friends led a petition campaign calling on the agencies to heed the EPA advice and do more work on the environmental review before moving any further ahead. More than 2,000 signatures were sent to government officials calling for adequate environmental review.

Will include land exchange

One significant addition to the environmental review will be a proposed land exchange with the U.S. Forest Service. The proposed PolyMet mine site is on public land managed by the Superior National Forest. In order to start mining, PolyMet needs to acquire the land.

In 2008, Rep. James Oberstar and Sens. Klobuchar and Coleman introduced legislation seeking to circumvent usual processes and sell the 6,700 acres of public land outright. The Friends opposed the sale and it seems to have been abandoned. The company is now pursuing a land exchange. Because the entire mine proposal is based on the assumption PolyMet will acquire the land, review of such an exchange is essential to any environmental review.

The Forest Service has also increased its involvement in the review process, signing on as a co-lead agency with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Natural Resources. The EPA is also being brought in as a cooperating agency.

“Damage deposit” information

Other work includes developing project alternatives that would cause less environmental degradation and including more information about financial assurance. It is unclear if the financial assurance will meet standards in proposed legislation at the Minnesota state capitol this spring.

The EPA criticisms of the mine proposal and the environmental review were widely-discussed at four committee hearings in the Minnesota legislature in March. A bill that sought to strengthen “damage deposit” rules did not move out of committee; among its provisions, the legislation would have required financial assurance to be included in draft EISs.

However, the level of detail that will provided about financial assurance is still unclear. A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers told the Pioneer Press, “We will talk about different mechanisms. There may be a range of dollar amounts that will be provided, but that is yet to be fully fleshed out.”

Devil in the details

The decision to create the supplement draft EIS is a positive step, but the review process still demands close attention by citizens, conservation organizations and policy-makers. Because of the severity of the faults in the draft EIS, a significant amount of work needs to be done, including field work gathering additional data.

The public will have additional opportunities to be involved, including a comment period and at least one public meeting.

Sulfide mining media canoe trip

BWCAW guide Jason Zabokrtsky explains to reporters where they are paddling in relation to mining activity while photographers capture the moment.

On Thursday, June 17, the Friends and Border Lakes Outfitting organized a canoe trip for reporters along the South Kawishiwi River. The area is ground zero of exploration for new sulfide mines, and is just a few miles from the edge of the Boundary Waters.

The reporters, photographers, Boundary Waters guide and outfitter Jason Zabokrtsky, and Friends staff paddled several miles from the South Kawishiwi River BWCAW entry point downstream toward Birch Lake.

Along the route, the group saw the beautiful, wild area that is being targeted for mine development (primarily by Duluth Metals). The group also visited the area’s Outward Bound camp and cabin-owners who are already being affected by the intense exploratory activity occurring in the area.

Minnesota Public Radio

Stephanie Hemphill, MPR’s award-winning environment reporter, joined the trip and produced an excellent piece about the issue, looking in-depth at what is occurring, what the effects of drilling and other exploration activities have already been, and the concerns of local citizens about the potential pollution from mines.

Excerpt:

A trickle of water runs from a six-inch hole Duluth Metals is drilling some 3,000 feet into the earth, seeping into a pit that holds water and a scum of grey muck, finely ground rock from deep in the earth. [Steve] Koschak [owner of River Point Resort] says it probably contains copper and nickel traces.

“But look what it’s going into, a wetland,” he says.  “That’s all this is, is a network of spruce swamps, all interconnected, this all goes into Birch Lake, all this water.”

When the drilling is done, workers will bury the muck on site as required by the state. Duluth Metals says there won’t be enough mineral waste to be any cause for concern.

The drilling is a precursor to what could be a deep shaft mine, more than half mile below the surface of the earth.  A mine would produce many tons of ground-up waste sulfide rock.  When it’s brought to the surface, a chemical reaction occurs that produces sulfuric acid.  If the rock is not carefully isolated from air and water, it can acidify nearby streams and wetlands — possibly enough to poison the life in the water.

“At the edge of the Boundary Waters, miners probe for copper, nickel”

• View photo slideshow
• Listen

Duluth News Tribune

John Myers of the Duluth News Tribune also joined the trip and wrote a story about the potential economic value of the minerals, and about the concerns of pollution that could come from mines.

Excerpt:

Kawishiwi, mining opponents note, is Ojibwe for endless waters. While the PolyMet project is in the Lake Superior watershed, Duluth Metals is in the BWCAW watershed that flows north to Hudson Bay.

“The Boundary Waters is like one giant river flowing in and out of little lakes, that will flow right past all this (Duluth Metals) mining activity and then right back into the Boundary Waters,” said canoe guide Jason Zabokrtsky of Ely. “Anything that happens here will spread.”

Along a recent canoe trip sponsored by critics of copper mining, other wilderness supporters explained their concerns.

“No one is suggesting that these companies would pollute the water on purpose. But after BP and the coal mine disasters this year, it’s pretty clear that things happen that no one plans for and that they can’t stop.” said Tyler Fish of Ely, youth program coordinator at the Out­ward Bond Camp on the Kawi­shi­wi River. “People come here because it’s a place apart. How can it be a place apart with a mine across the road?”

“Estimated $1 trillion in the ground, but mining critics are concerned about BWCAW”

Thank you!

The following people and businesses made invaluable contributions to the event and the Friends is extremely appreciative for their help:

• Jason Zabokrtsky, Border Lakes Outfitting
• Steve and Jane Koschak, River Point Resort
• Deborah and Shirley Huskins
• Paul and Sue Schurke, Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge

Thanks as well to Tyler Fish, Bob and Pat Tammen, Carla Arneson, and others who took the time to speak with the reporters. And last but not least, thank you to Stephanie Hemphill of MPR and John Myers of the Duluth News Tribune for taking the time to do the trip and give the issue the excellent coverage they did!

Lawsuit filed to protect Boundary Waters from visual impact of cell phone tower

The Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness (“Friends”) filed a lawsuit on June 22 against AT&T Mobility (“AT&T”) to stop the construction of a telecommunications tower that will significantly impair the natural and scenic beauty of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and the surrounding area.

AT&T has proposed to build a 450-tower on an elevated ridge within two miles of the Boundary Waters that will loom approximately 600 feet above the surrounding wilderness landscape, a height that rivals some of the tallest skyscrapers in the Twin Cities. The tower will be illuminated day and night with strobe and beacon lighting, and will be visible for miles inside the wilderness area on several popular lakes, including Basswood, Fall, Ella Hall and South Farm Lakes.

“The scenic beauty of the Boundary Waters, a 1.1-million-acre, federally-protected wilderness area, must be preserved now so the wilderness continues to be a natural, pristine and unspoiled environment for generations to come,” said Paul Danicic, Executive Director of the Friends.

The Friends has repeatedly expressed its concerns about the proposed tower to AT&T and to the Lake County zoning authority. The Friends sought to discuss with AT&T the need for an environmental assessment of the tower’s effect on the Boundary Waters and to consider less environmentally-damaging alternatives that would provide area residents with improved cell phone service. AT&T did not respond.

“Protecting the Boundary Water’s natural beauty is important not only for its own sake, but for the many Minnesota businesses that rely on revenue generated by the thousands of visitors each year,” added Danicic. “People come to the Boundary Waters for recreational opportunities and to experience the spectacular scenery in a natural environment. All Minnesotans share an interest to protect Minnesota’s most treasured natural space so that business can continue to thrive through tourism dollars.”

The lawsuit was filed in Hennepin County District Court alleging a violation of the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act. The lawsuit asks the court to enjoin the construction of the proposed tower and declare that the construction of the proposed tower would violate Minnesota Environmental Rights Act.

The Friends remains committed to finding a solution that meets the needs of area residents and preserves the Boundary Waters. AT&T’s failure to engage in any dialogue whatsoever about less environmentally-damaging alternatives leaves the Friends with no choice but seek relief in court.

Wild & Scenic Film Festival – Ely, July 22

"The Canoe King of Ely"

Join the Friends in Ely on the Thursday before the city’s popular Blueberry Arts Festival to watch award-winning films from around the world about nature and environmental issues. This is the second year that the Friends has sponsored the film festival in Ely.

Details

• When: Thursday, July 22 – 7 p.m.
• Where: Washington Auditorium, 600 East Harvey St., Ely (map)
• Cost: $8 adults/$5 children 12 and under

Sponsors

• Presented by Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness
• Sponsored by Border Lakes Outfitting, Piragis Northwoods Company, Raven Productions, River Point Resort, Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge

Films

This year’s event will feature the following films. Check out their trailers!

The Canoe King of Ely
Bill Rom’s passion for the woods and lakes of Minnesota’s canoe country led him to transform the middle-class of America after WWII by making it fun and affordable to have natural recreational experiences.

Big River
This film investigates the environmental impact their acre of corn has had on the people and places downstream.

Flathead Wild
In July 2009, a team of photographers, scientists, local conservation organizations, and cameramen documented the beauty and the destruction of the Flathead Valley in Canada, which is threatened by mountain top removal and methane drilling proposals.

Split Estate
Imagine discovering that you don’t own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine having little recourse, other than accepting an unregulated industry in your backyard.

Generations: A Perspective on Climate Change
This film humanizes the debate on climate change by exploring the delicate balance of winter and the intrinsic value of snow to people across generations and cultures.

Precious Waters
This film, produced by the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness in 2009, takes a hard look at the risks of new sulfide mining proposals in northeastern Minnesota.

Ride of the Mergansers
This perennial favorite documents life in a northern Minnesota merganser nest with unprecedented footage. With humor and joy, watch a mother merganser as she lays eggs, as the eggs hatch, as she finds relief from the chaos of the nest box, and ultimately coaxes her offspring out of the nest and into the world.