It has been a hard year for the Boundary Waters.

In April, President Trump signed House Joint Resolution 140, using the Congressional Review Act to erase a 20-year mineral withdrawal that protected more than 225,000 acres of public land surrounding the Boundary Waters. This wiped out a. crucial piece of protection built on years of scientific analysis and public comments.

Who benefited? Antofagasta, the Chilean mining conglomerate behind the proposed Twin Metals mine. (Read our breakdown of what HJR 140 means and what comes next.)

Then came the fires. The smoke over lakes many of us paddled our whole lives. For a while, the entire Boundary Waters closed.

When August began, 2026 was not looking like a good year for the Boundary Waters.

Governor Walz Acts

On August 18, Governor Walz signed Executive Order 26-10.

The order directs Minnesota DNR and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to undertake no environmental review or permitting work on copper-sulfide mining proposals in the Rainy River Headwaters until litigation around rulemaking has been resolved.

It bars the DNR from serving as a cooperating agency in any federal environmental review of a nonferrous mining project in the watershed.

It prohibits new state mineral leases.

It prohibits new state surface leases for mining operations, including the disposal or storage of tailings and other waste.

It requires DNR to review existing state leases in the watershed.

Then comes the provision almost no one expected.

The order directs the DNR to draft legislative language prohibiting nonferrous mining in the Rainy River watershed.

Read that again. The Governor of Minnesota just told his natural resources agency to write the ban.

That goes beyond a moratorium. A moratorium pauses. Legislation decides. DNR, the agency that would permit a copper-sulfide mine, has been instructed to put this prohibition on paper and send it to the Legislature.

This is the strongest statewide protection the Boundary Waters has ever received.

It is also, plainly, a governor deciding that Minnesota will not be a passive participant in the federal assault on this wilderness treasure.

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Governor Walz’s Executive order

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The fight ahead

We should be clear-eyed about what comes next. The mining industry and its political allies will fight this order. Antofagasta has spent more than a decade and enormous sums pursuing this mine. It has lawyers, lobbyists, and money to keep going.

Expect litigation. Expect pressure on the Legislature. Expect the federal government to look for ways around a state that refuses to cooperate.

That fight is coming, and we will be ready for it.

But not today. Today we are grateful for a governor who acted decisively when it would have been easier to wait.

Grateful for every supporter who wrote, called, testified, and kept showing up through the hardest year this wilderness has faced in a long time.

And grateful, most of all, to have a place like the Boundary Waters that is worth defending.