Superior National Forest, Minnesota
Take Action! Reject the Damaging Boundary Waters Land Swap
Public comment for the Boundary Waters - School Trust Land Exchange
Please submit your comments opposing the Boundary Waters Land Exchange, Scoping Comments are requested by May 15, 2015
Click to send a comment email to the Forest Service
It would be Harmful to the BOUNDARY WATERS, SUPERIOR NATIONAL FOREST and LAKE SUPERIOR
It’s a Bad Deal for the Nation and Minnesota's School Children, A Good Deal for Mining and Logging
The US Forest Service is taking comments on a land exchange proposal that would transfer over 30,000 acres of protected Superior National Forest lands into state management, intended to maximize revenue generation. Removing these lands from Federal administration would result in the loss of important protections, including the Weeks Act and other prohibitions against strip mining. The land exchange would also remove the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review and appeal process. The underlying purpose of this bill would be to benefit mining companies and logging interests, by removing Federal provisions protecting the lands.
Transferring these lands from Federal to State ownership would be a strip mining give-away to mining companies currently exploring for copper-nickel sulfide deposits, and to taconite mining expansions, which includes mine waste rock piles, tailings basins, roads, and processing facilities. In addition to mining, the lands would be slated for intensive logging and for new biomass initiatives, as well as opening up the forest for mineral exploration. These are areas of the Superior National Forest that currently host camping, hiking, canoeing, and hunting opportunities, or border recreational lakes or private real-estate (cabins, homes, businesses).
Stop the give-away of the Superior National Forest being proposed in the name of our children!
The Purpose is to Remove Federal Protections on Superior National Forest Lands,
lands that lie within a designated National Forest and are owned by the Federal government have a variety of critical protections.
According to Rep. David Dill, D-Crane Lake, from MPR found HERE:
"...we should mine, log, and lease the hell out of that land that we get in the change."
Acid Mine Drainage - MPCA
The proposed land exchange would be a taking of the Superior National Forest in order to facilitate controversial mining that would pollute the Superior National Forest and the two internationally important watersheds of Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters.
In short, all aspects of the exchange proposal favor mining interests and punish the public at large.
The Boundary Waters-School Trust Land Exchange paves the way for a Copper-Nickel Sulfide Mining District in Minnesota
Land exchanges that transfers lands out of the Superior National Forest for maximum mineral and natural resources development and exploitation, while removing current Federal protections on the lands would be detrimental to the Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters and would conflict with the intent and purpose of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act of 1978.
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The school trust lands in the BWCAW issue is being used to manipulate, change, and control the mineral interests of the Superior National Forest, in order to facilitate turning Minnesota's beloved Arrowhead Region into a copper-nickel sulfide mining district.
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The laws of the land established to protect the Superior National Forest, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the Lake Superior watershed and the entire State of Minnesota, are being weakened by legislation, ignored by governmental agencies, and bypassed through land exchanges.
Minnesota's Constitution specifies that the Permanent School Fund must be managed for "maximum return”, not that the land itself must be maximized for revenue generation. The Permanent School Fund (PSF) could be receiving a percentage of U.S. Forest Service permit fees for trust lands within the BWCAW. Such a recreational fee was suggested in the 1990’s, but rejected by Iron Range legislators. The majority of Minnesota's school trust lands were sold by the early 1900’s for agriculture and development. The PSF is now worth $750 million. Interest from the fund generates $26 per student, out of approximately $10,000 allocated (state general fund, property taxes, Federal dollars) per student per year. The PSF contributes less than .3% per student. In northeast Minnesota, much of the school trust lands are wetlands, forest, or designated Swamp Lands, which were never meant to generate monies for the trust.
While logging, leasing, land sales, and iron mining have added to the fund over the years, a new type of mining dominates political discourse. Multi-national mining companies are exploring the entire Superior National Forest, between Lake Vermilion and the North Shore, for previously unmarketable low grade copper-nickel sulfide mineralization. Despite the fact that mining of these sulfide ores would leave behind a trail of Acid Mine Drainage, heavy metal pollution, and 99% waste rock, politicians grasp onto mining company projections of the financial benefits to the state while ignoring the long-term consequences and costs of perpetual water treatment and extensive and persistent pollution and environmental degradation.
The Boundary Waters - School Trust Land Exchange opens the door for new mining proposals on the Superior National Forest. Such is the case with PolyMet whose proposed copper-nickel open pits, though not on school trust land, would lie upon what is now Superior National Forest. According to U.S. Forest Service comments in PolyMet’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, “It is the position of the United States that the mineral rights reserved…do not include the right to open pit mine the National Forest lands.” PolyMet would thus need special legislation removing current environmental protections in order to open a strip mine on the Superior National Forest.
The Boundary Waters - School Trust Land Exchange also ignores the fact that many of the Federal lands have severed mineral rights owned by private mining interests, and therefore will not generate money for the school trust if exchanged. Private mineral interests do not contribute to the school trust fund; PolyMet's proposed project would not contribute to the trust. Nor does the bill solve the problem of the State's approximately 100,000 acres of severed mineral rights that would remain within the BWCAW; these mineral rights could generate further exchanges and the further dismantling of Superior National Forest. The primary intent of the proposed land exchange is to facilitate the opening of a sulfide mining district on lands bordering the BWCAW and extending through what is now Superior National Forest to Lake Superior.
Specific land chosen by the DNR for this exchange, by removing federal protections, would facilitate a controversial future open pit mining operation at Teck Cominco's Mesaba Deposit, located between the proposed PolyMet and Twin Metals projects. The permitting of expansive mining would result in a massive open pit sulfide mine zone that would change the landscape and impact the water quality of both the Boundary Waters and the Lake Superior watershed--into perpetuity.
Scoping Comments are requested by May 15, 2015.
*Citing high public interest, the Forest Service has extended the comment period from April 3, through May 15, 2015.
If you wish to submit a comment, please send it to: prtaylor@fs.fed.us and include comments-eastern-superior@fs.fed.us
Peter Taylor
Superior National Forest All Units
8901 Grand Ave Place, Duluth, MN, 55808
prtaylor@fs.fed.us
USFS site: http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=45943
Moose - USFWS
Alert: Oppose the Boundary Waters - School Trust Land Exchange
This exchange is not in the best interest of Minnesota's school children:
• It facilitates proposed sulfide strip mining in the Superior National Forest.
• It would harm the Arrowhead's iconic wildlife heritage, including the endangered Canada lynx, gray wolf, moose and imperiled northern long-eared bat and loon.
• It would open the doorway to intensive logging, including new bio-mass proposals.
• It allows for the expansion of taconite mining operations which include waste rock disposal and tailings basin expansion with ensuing pollution.
• It removes watershed protections, and enables further land exchanges to occur on remaining acres and/or over mineral rights.
• Such a land exchange removes the right to citizen input, environmental review and ignores the public's right to experience the values of Superior National Forest, and the right to clean air and water.
• The land exchange lacks Tribal consultation and ignores Native American off-reservation hunting, fishing and gathering rights.
The education of Minnesota's school children should not be subsidized by the degradation and destruction of the forest lands of northeast Minnesota that are now part of Superior National Forest that lies outside of the Boundary Waters.
There are environmentally sound ways to add money to the Permanent School Fund, without destroying our heritage for our State's children.
Public meetings for proposed Boundary Waters land swap between state and feds
This proposed exchange would involve about 30,000 of the 86,000 State held acreage within the 1.1 million acre BWCAW.
U.S. Forest Service public meetings are from 4 to 7 p.m.
•March 9: Gunflint Ranger Station, 2020 W. Minnesota Highway 61, Grand Marais
•March 10: Laurentian Ranger Station, 318 Forestry Road, Aurora
•March 12: Forest Headquarters, 8901 Grand Avenue Place, Duluth
•March 23: Kawishiwi Ranger Station, 1393 Minnesota Highway 169, Ely
•March 26: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Headquarters, 500 Lafayette Road, St. Paul
Click to send a comment email to the Forest Service
Scoping Comments are requested by May 15, 2015.
Submitting Comments: Peter Taylor at prtaylor@fs.fed.us and include comments-eastern-superior@fs.fed.us
More info here: http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=45943
Sample email text:
Peter Taylor
Superior National Forest All Units
8901 Grand Ave Place, Duluth, MN, 55808
prtaylor@fs.fed.us
I am writing in opposition to the School Trust land exchange as it would be harmful to the BOUNDARY WATERS, SUPERIOR NATIONAL FOREST and LAKE SUPERIOR.
The main purpose of the exchange is to remove federal protections on Superior National Forest lands that have a variety of critical protections.
The land exchange is not in the public interest of the citizens of Minnesota and the Nation:
• It facilitates controversial sulfide open pit strip mining in the Superior National Forest.
• It would harm the Arrowhead's iconic wildlife, including the endangered Canada lynx, gray wolf, northern long-eared bat, and imperiled moose.
• It would open the doorway to intensive logging, including bio-mass proposals.
• It allows for the expansion of taconite mining operations which include waste rock disposal and tailings basin expansion with ensuing pollution.
• It removes watershed protections, and enables further land exchanges to occur on remaining acres and/or over mineral rights.
• Such a land exchange removes the right to citizen input and environmental review.
• The land exchange lacks Tribal consultation and ignores Native American hunting, fishing and gathering rights.
In short, all aspects of the exchange favor mining and logging interests and punish the public at large, reject the damaging BWCAW land exchange.
Your name and address here
Additional background on the Boundary Waters land exchange from our archives:
Representative Cravaack introduces Special Favors Bill for multinational mining corporations that will allow tens of thousands of acres of Federally protected SUPERIOR NATIONAL FOREST lands to be strip mined! H.R. 5544 would mandate and expedite the transfer of tens of thousands of acres of protected National Forest lands into state management intended to maximize revenue generation. Removing these lands from Federal administration would result in the loss of important protections, including the Weeks Act and other Acts prohibition against strip mining and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review and appeal process. The underlying purpose of this bill would be to benefit mining companies by removing Federal protections and eluding steps in the standard land exchange process which includes public comment and participation, Native American Tribal consultation, environmental review and appeal. (this bill did not become law, it stalled in Congress)
Link: Sulfide Mining For Our Children?
Link: Take Action - Stop the Land Exchange!
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Save Our Sky Blue Waters www.sosbluewaters.org
Save Lake Superior Association www.savelakesuperior.org
Friends of the Cloquet Valley State Forest www.friendscvsf.org
Hull Rust Mine, Hibbing Minnesota - Aaron Brown
Minnesota Brown www.minnesotabrown.com
