The Unaffordable Question

Will it make a difference?

It is clearly a crowd with many first-timers, squinting to figure out the machines to pay their parking, helped by (younger) strangers in line; people turning maps of the Capitol complex around in their hands, trying to find the State Senate Building. Having found the building, the challenge then becomes finding an entrance, trying out different directions on the sidewalks, hitting dead ends, looping back. A voice calls out: “Follow the Patagonia!” A good bet for a crowd showing up to a public hearing on legislation aiming to safeguard Minnesota’s water and the BWCA.

Even among people who support protection of natural resources, there can be the impression that only “a certain sort” of people are politically active beyond voting—maybe people who are “into” politics, are naturally outspoken, have specialized knowledge, or who enjoy that kind of thing. If that has ever been true, it’s not true anymore. The times are clearly inspiring many of us to step outside of our comfort zones in the interest of things we care deeply about. If our phone calls to elected officials or letters to the editor aren’t very slick or we bumble around in unfamiliar settings, so be it. It is still a positive step, a flicker of hope. In large and small ways, regular people are showing up.

Just a week earlier, hundreds had turned out for a President’s Day rally on the steps of the state Capitol despite a wind chill of -20F. Among those present were people moving slowly with the aid of walkers and canes: people for whom coming out in such conditions was clearly a serious undertaking. The fact that they bundled up and came despite the bitter cold only underscored that it was, in fact, a serious business—to have a voice in what is and is not being done in our names. “My husband told me it wouldn’t make any difference, but I just felt I had to do something,” shared a woman through the scarf that covered her face, her eyelashes crusted with ice crystals. She carried no sign. She was speaking with her presence.

A whole realm of possibilities opens up when we swap the “Will it make a difference?” question for “Why would I miss a chance to make a difference?” One thing is certain, our living room furniture shouldn’t hear more about our views than the elected officials who make policy and laws.

Today’s opportunity is promoted as “A Hearing on the Boundary Waters,” organized by the nonprofit Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. The public is invited to hear testimony related to three bills aimed at preventing degradation of the state’s water (and the associated ecologic and economic costs) by nonferrous sulfide ore mining. These include Prove It First (SF1382/HF954), the Bad Actor bill (SF1744/HF1197) and the Taxpayer Protection Act (SF1383/HF955). The purpose of the hearing, says Friends’ Director Chris Knopf, “is to raise awareness, educate, and empower citizens to take action.”

The room is standing room only, packed to the gills with overflow spilling out into the hallway. It’s an all-ages crowd, from grey-haired folks to kids sitting cross-legged on the floor wearing t-shirts with “Protect Clean Water” and “Stop Copper Sulfide Mining“ printed across the backs. There is a fair number of outdoorsy types in—yup—Patagonia, NorthFace and the like. Space is tight, but the closest thing to a disagreement is one person saying “No, you go ahead” and the rebuttal, “No, no, you” when offered an open chair.

The chatter in the room falls away as the program begins. Mining expert and 30-year professor of Geology Dr. Steven Emerman states, “The sulfide mining industry has a perfect track record of water pollution. I repeat: a perfect track record of pollution.” He gives examples of mines, like the Flambeau mine in Wisconsin operated by Rio Tinto, which is held up as a success story of sulfide ore mining without environmental contamination simply because it completed its reclamation plan. But the plan was not successful in avoiding pollution, says Emerman, and copper contamination from a tributary stream to the Flambeau River that crosses the mine site remains so high that the stream is nearly devoid of life and has been placed on the EPA Impaired Waters List.

Fred Campbell, former state regulator with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, projects catastrophic impacts of sulfide mining releases to the surrounding environment from the multiple mines and mining districts foreseen in expansion plans by companies such as NewRange Copper Nickel, Twin Metals, and Talon. New legislation is needed to protect the BWCAW and other sensitive areas, says Campbell, since Minnesota’s existing legal and regulatory framework cannot protect us from these dangers.

Kelly Applegate, Commissioner of Natural Resources for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, asserts that there is no evidence that nickel-sulfide mines like the Tamarack mine proposed by international mining conglomerate Talon Metals/Rio Tinto can operate safely. Other options should be explored to meet nickel demand for green energy, such as recycling nickel and metal waste. “We believe that clean energy technology and solutions to the climate crisis are crucial,” he says, “but not at the expense of Indigenous people, the broader Minnesota population, our environment, and our water.”

Miners offer testimony supporting the need for the legislation to protect water resources. Bob Tammen worked in the Soudan underground mine and the open pit iron mine that followed. He speaks of the contamination of Birch Lake and the BWCA from waters flowing through sulfide ore from the Duluth Complex exposed during iron mining operations at the Dunka Mine south of Ely. “We should be very skeptical about mining the Duluth Complex that copper-nickel promoters want to mine,” says Tammen. He points to reports from respected geologists stating that the average mineralization of the Complex here is less than 1%, which means that any such mine would produce a tremendous amount of waste to manage. Another miner, Mike Maleska, is a life-long resident of the rural Hibbing area, and worked in a taconite mine for 42 years, serving as union steward and local union president. He points to the specter of “having the most-polluting industry in the country operating in the most pristine part” of Minnesota. “As a former miner and elected union rep, I know that shutting down a mine is incredibly difficult, one might say impossible, never mind how dirty it is.”

Eric Ini of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy speaks from personal knowledge of Glencore—a Swiss-based mining company—and its operations in his native Cameroon. A track record of corrupt business practices (including bribery of government officials), says Ini,
led to reduced taxes and royalties paid by Glencore. As a result, the citizens of Cameroon have not seen the economic benefits they had been led to expect from extraction of their natural resources: money desperately needed to support basic needs. Pointing to a laundry list of criminal indictments and lawsuits brought against the company in the countries where it has operated around the world, Ini says “Our [Minnesota’s] environment and communities deserve better than to be put at risk by a company with a proven track record of corruption and disregard for the law.”

The testimony continues. Alan Thometz has had a career in commercial banking, mergers and acquisition, and is a finance lecturer at the University of Minnesota. “Here is an extraordinary fact,” says Thometz: “Mining companies use bankruptcy as a strategic tool to avoid their environmental cleanup responsibilities. That is not an accident—it is how they do business.” Financial assurance laws designed to protect taxpayers are often insufficient, he notes. “Once the ore body is depleted, the mine has no further economic value. …They walk away from their obligations while their investors keep the profits that have already been distributed.”

Claire Peterson, a freshman at the U of M, wraps it up with a plea: “My hope for the future is that young people like myself can continue to discover and fall in love with the Boundary Waters, where they can witness its unspoiled beauty year after year.” She advocates for passage of the three bills. “I, for one, would much rather spend the rest of my life planning trips to the Boundary Waters with my family, rather than trying to cleanse it of sulfide sludge.”

Most of us had high school Civics, so it shouldn’t come as news. But standing in this room, the difference between showing up and not showing up in a democracy is alarmingly clear. The fact that this hearing was not before a legislative committee or other governing body does not mean that it wasn’t a formal part of the legislative process. Getting these bills to be taken up, mustering the votes on both sides of the aisle to have some semblance of them pass into law: that’s on us.

And even in settings such as this one, where full transcripts and videotape of testimony will be made available to the public by Friends of the Boundary Waters afterwards, there are benefits to showing up in person.

In her opening remarks, Senator Jen McEwan was brought to tears as she looked out at the faces in the room, her spirits lifted by the turnout. McEwan is a sponsor of all three bills in the Senate. “I want to say thank you to each and every one of you,” she begins. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have all of you here in this space. This building and this work can be a very lonely place; a difficult slog, particularly if you’re working on multiple issues like trying to protect our waters. So thank you; it helps me to have you here.”

She reminds those gathered of the larger context. “I am the chair of the Senate Labor Committee, and am very passionate about working people and the need for people to have have jobs and make a living and thrive in their communities. I know we’re here to save our waters, but it is also critically important that we connect our environmental advocacy to the needs of working people, and the need for us to care for one another in community.”

This isn’t about being pro- or anti-mining, she notes, acknowledging that people in the room may land in different places along that line. “It’s just saying, “Prove it First;” bring us proof that shows us how you did the type of mine that you’re proposing safely somewhere else.”

Citizens who support these measures need to get loud, says McEwan. “We need, all of us, to get very serious about holding elected officials accountable, to ask pointed, hard questions to people on both sides of the aisle, even if you agree with them on other issues.” And don’t ignore those who have already indicated their support for these bills, she notes, you can ask them to be more vocal, to issue public statements about their position, to actively advocate for their success. “In Minnesota,” she says, “protecting the water should be a nonpartisan issue.”

If the people who came out on this random Tuesday in February sought to advocate for their beloved Boundary Waters, they did so. By packing the room, they offered tangible evidence that these issues matter to voters: including the next generation. They learned new facts and perspectives from those who gave testimony, becoming better able to fend off misinformation. They lifted up the people who work in the trenches on these issues every day. They also got a brand new to-do list, which is to be expected: there’s no such thing as being done when it comes to protecting something you love.