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Minnesota Duluth Complex and Iron Range

Smith introduces bill to ban copper-nickel mining near Boundary Waters – by Jimmy Lovrien (Duluth News Tribune – April 9, 2025)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

The legislation would make permanent a 20-year ban on that type of mining on 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest in the Rainy River Watershed, a Biden-era move Trump has vowed to reverse.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., has introduced a bill to ban copper-nickel mining on nearly a quarter-million acres of federal land in the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The bill would make permanent a 20-year ban on that type of mining on 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest land in the Rainy River Watershed, which is shared with the BWCAW. The status of mining in that watershed and Twin Metals, which wants to build an underground mine, tailings storage facility and processing plant upstream of the BWCAW along Birch Lake, has bounced back and forth depending on who is in the White House.

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Proposed bill would bar state permitting of copper-nickel mines near Boundary Waters – by Jimmy Lovrien (Duluth News Tribune – February 13, 2025)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Past federal protections against mining in the BWCAW watershed face challenges.

ST. PAUL — Minnesota legislators have introduced a bill to bar copper-nickel mines from developing within the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The bill seeks to ban mining on state-owned land within the Rainy River Watershed and bar the state from permitting any mining or mineral exploration in that watershed.

Mining is banned in the BWCAW, but environmentalists fear, and a federal government study released under President Joe Biden said, that tainted runoff from mining activities outside the wilderness’ boundaries but within the same watershed could harm the downstream wilderness area.

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U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber reintroduces bill that would open copper nickel mining near Boundary Waters – by Sydney Kashiwagi and Chloe Johnson (Minnesota Star Tribune – February 6, 2025)

https://www.startribune.com/

Sen. Tina Smith plans to oppose the legislation if it reaches the Senate.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republican control in Washington could open the way for copper nickel mining efforts near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. GOP Rep. Pete Stauber, who represents northeastern Minnesota, has again introduced a bill that would reinstate mineral leases in the Superior National Forest.

With Republicans controlling the House and Senate, and President Donald Trump’s push to prioritize domestic mining, he likes his chances. Stauber said that “without question,” the president will sign it into law if it reaches his desk.

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After Trump’s win, mining near BWCAW back in play – by Jimmy Lovrien (Duluth News Tribune – November 11, 2024)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

In July, President-elect Trump vowed to reverse Biden’s mineral withdrawal on 225,000 acres of federal land in the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in “about 10 minutes.”

ELY — President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reverse the Biden administration’s 20-year mining ban on federal land within the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, bolstering the hopes of copper-nickel mining industry supporters but worrying environmentalists who fear pollution to the downstream wilderness area.

The mineral withdrawal, which bans mining on 225,000 acres of the Superior National Forest until 2043, and non-renewal of key federal mineral leases to Twin Metals’ proposed copper-nickel mine effectively killed the company’s plan to build an underground mine and tailings-storage facility processing plant along Birch Lake, which flows into the BWCAW via the Kawishiwi River.

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After many delays, $2B Iron Range project revives quest to create first new taconite mine since 1970s – by Mike Hughlett (Minnesota Star Tribune – November 2024)

https://www.startribune.com/

Mesabi Metallics lost critical state mineral leases last year, leaving an even bigger question mark over its half-built, controversial project in Nashwauk. But the company says it will finish the plant.

NASHWAUK, MINN. – An industrial resurrection seems afoot at a long-promising but snakebitten $2 billion-plus taconite project. On a crisp fall morning, a construction site in this Iron Range city teemed with workers aiming to complete a venture given up for dead by just about everybody but its owner, Mesabi Metallics.

After years of missed deadlines and financial failures, Mesabi last year permanently lost crucial state mineral leases. But Mesabi still controls private land leases in Nashwauk. And it has renewed construction of a project that was only half built when work shut down during a 2016 bankruptcy.

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This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future – by James Temple (MIT Technology Review – January 23, 2024)

https://www.technologyreview.com/

The world needs to dig up far more minerals to meet climate goals. But mining poses environmental dangers that are bitterly dividing communities.

Minnesota’s Highway 210 threads through the tiny towns of Aitkin County, a poor and sparsely populated stretch of forests, lakes, and wetlands that reaches just into the northeastern corner of the state. A short drive off the highway, due south past the Tamarack Church, delivers you to Jackson’s Hole, the last remaining business in the unincorporated community of Lawler.

A little before noon on a Tuesday in late June, several dozen people from across the region filed into the barn-red, century-old town store turned saloon. They settled into seats around folding tables in the rear banquet room, where deer horns and a bearskin rug adorn the walls.

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Long-delayed Minnesota copper-nickel mining project wins a round in court after several setbacks – by Steve Karnowski (Associated Press – December 18, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a decision by a state agency to grant a major permit for the proposed NewRange copper-nickel mine, saying regulators adequately considered the possibility that developers might expand the project in the future.

It was a win for NewRange Copper Nickel, which remains stalled by court and regulatory setbacks. The $1 billion open-pit mine near Babbitt and processing plant near Hoyt Lakes would be Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine. It’s a 50-50 joint venture between Swiss commodities giant Glencore and Canada-based Teck Resources. The project was renamed NewRange Copper Nickel in February but it’s still widely known by its old name, PolyMet.

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Pentagon gives mine developer $20M to find nickel in Michigan – by Garret Ellison (M Live.com – September 20, 2023)

https://www.mlive.com/

WASHINGTON, D.C., — The federal government has awarded more than $20 million to a mine developer which is exploring for nickel deposits in Michigan and Minnesota.

On Tuesday, Sept. 12, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a grant to Talon Metals, which is accelerating its hunt for nickel along a geologically unique region that includes parts of Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

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Lithium, Nickel Miners Get $110 Million Boost From US Defense Department – by Joe Deaux (Bloomberg News – September 12, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Albemarle Corp. and Talon Metals Corp. are getting about $110 million in new US government funding to support the expansion of domestic mining of lithium and nickel, two metals critical to the nation’s energy transition.

Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producer, will get $90 million to help support the miner’s planned reopening of its Kings Mountain, North Carolina lithium mine. Nickel miner Talon Metals will get $20.6 million to advance exploration of its Tamarack Intrusive Complex in Minnesota. The agreements, under the Defense Production Act, were announced Tuesday by the Defense Department.

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Mining company loses bid to revive Minnesota copper, nickel project – by Clark Mindock (Reuters – September 7, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

Sept 7 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge has rejected a bid by a subsidiary of Chilean mining company Antofagasta Plc(ANTO.L) to restore canceled mineral leases for a proposed $1.7 billion Minnesota copper and nickel mine, which the Biden administration had blocked over concerns it could pollute a major recreational waterway.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday dismissed Twin Metals’ 2022 lawsuit, which challenged the U.S. Interior Department’s decision earlier that year to cancel leases for an underground mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The project would have been one of the biggest U.S. sources of metals needed to build electric vehicle batteries and other clean energy technologies.

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Front Row Seat: Book explores culture, conflict on Iron Range – by Jay Gabler (Duluth News Tribune – August 17, 2023)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

As a sociological research project, Erik Kojola spent four years talking with people on both sides of the copper-nickel mining debate for “Mining the Heartland.”

DULUTH — Erik Kojola’s paternal grandparents have died, but he thinks the Hibbing couple would have been excited to know their grandchild wrote a book about the Iron Range. At the same time, Kojola believes, they would have been “somewhat dismayed to see some of the conflicts that are going on right now.”

Kojola was speaking via video call last week from the Washington D.C. area, where he lives and works as a researcher for Greenpeace. He was raised out east, but his parents are from the Northland and Kojola got to know the area through family visits.

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Glencore moves to take full control of PolyMet, developer of Minnesota copper-nickel mine – by Steve Karnowski (Associated Press – July 3, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Swiss commodities giant Glencore moved Monday to take full ownership of PolyMet Mining, a company that’s developing a copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota with one of Canada’s largest miners, Teck Resources.

Glencore already owns 82% of PolyMet Mining and has long been the project’s main financial backer. It offered Monday to pay around $71 million to raise that stake to 100%, which would take St. Paul-headquartered PolyMet private. Glencore’s proposal represents around a 167% premium over PolyMet’s closing stock price on Friday, and shares surged on the news in Monday’s trading.

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Minnesota plans rewrite of rules for copper-nickel mining near popular wilderness (Associated Press – June 1, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota regulators have concluded that state rules governing where copper-nickel mines can be built are insufficient to protect the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from noise and light pollution, creating another potential obstacle to the proposed Twin Metals mine in northeastern Minnesota.

But the Department of Natural Resources declined as part of that decision Wednesday to declare a watershed that flows into the Boundary Waters off-limits to copper-nickel mining altogether, which had been a goal of the environmental group that challenged the regulations, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

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Industry, business groups optimistic on nickel mining bordering Lake Superior – by Bruce Walker (The Center Square – May 26, 2023)

https://www.thecentersquare.com/

(The Center Square) – Geologists and mining experts say Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula may provide a solution for an obstacle facing the electric vehicle transition. Minerals are needed, and this area has them.

U.S. manufacturers are largely dependent on foreign countries like China, Russia and Indonesia for critical minerals like nickel and cobalt, which are key materials for electric vehicle batteries. Automakers increasingly are looking for domestic supplies, and northern Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – a geological area bordering Lake Superior dubbed the Midcontinent Rift – may provide the solution.

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Inside the mines and megamachines of the Iron Range – by Eric Roper (Star Tribune – May 12, 2023)

https://www.startribune.com/

A family’s question about large machines resulted in a Curious Minnesota field trip to the mighty Mesabi, a place that has fueled America’s success story.

KEEWATIN — The deep pits of the Iron Range feel quite otherworldly in a state known for its flat topography. Here, trucks the size of houses traverse vast canyons that have been carved away over decades by explosives and excavators. It is a constantly evolving landscape.

The Munson family of St. Louis Park asked Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune’s reader-fueled reporting project, to find the state’s largest machine — inspired by 9-year-old Julien’s new Transformers toy. Our hunt for answers in January revealed many candidates in the iron mines of northern Minnesota.

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