Hands Off the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

On Saturday, Chris Knopf, Executive Director of the Friends of the Boundary Waters, spoke at the Hands Off Rally in St. Paul, Minnesota to deliver an urgent message about the current attack on the Boundary Waters. I’ve written about this before and you can read my brief article about the Threats to the Boundary Waters.

The Boundary Waters is one of the most pristine wilderness areas in the world. The water is so clean that many people will dip a cup into the center of a lake and drink directly from it. It’s a million acres of protected wilderness with over 1,100 lakes, 1200 miles of canoe trails, and over 2000 campsites. It is America’s most used wilderness area.

Afterward his speech, Knopf wrote:

Your inheritance is being stolen.

The Boundary Waters embodies the ideals of Public Land. Land that belongs to all of us. Land that is owned by all of us.

But the Trump administration is working to open the door to Twin Metals, a Chilean mining conglomerate owned by billionaires. The administration is pushing a plan to fast track Twin Metals’ toxic copper-sulfide mine that would pollute some of the cleanest water in America.

We are at a crossroads.

Do we preserve public lands for all Americans to enjoy, or sell them off to billionaires who profit from their exploitation?

These lands are YOURS. Help us defend them.

The billionaire that Knopf spoke about and wrote about is the same one who during Trump’s 2017-2020 term bought a mansion in Washington D.C. and turned around and rented it to one of Trump’s kids. That certainly gave the appearance of pay-to-play, in my opinion. He had lost his permit to mine previously, but got it back from the Trump administration after 2017. He lost it again after 2021. A US Forest Service two-year study showed that copper-sulfide mining would be too dangerous and cause too much pollution to attempt on the Superior National Forest. By evoking wartime powers, even though we are not at war, it looks like this administration might be able to ignore environmental standards. That is unless we can stop them from wrecking the Boundary Waters.

You can watch Knopf’s speech below, and you can donate to the Friends of the Boundary Waters at this link.