Mining operations encroach on BWCAW

Greg Seitz, communications director for the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, reflected on a recent paddling trip he took down the South Kawishiwi River from the BWCAW to Birch Lake, Minnesota, and concerns about increasing mining activity in the area.

In a guest column appearing in The Minneapolis Star Tribune on June 29, Seitz wrote of paddling through an area "targeted by mining companies seeking copper, nickel and other metals in sulfide ores at the edge of the Boundary Waters. Development of such mines in the area have not gotten as much attention as PolyMet, the first company to try to open up such a sulfide mine in Minnesota. PolyMet, further along in the process, is some 15 or 20 miles southwest of where we were paddling."

Seitz said the area through which the South Kawishiwi River flows is of interest to Twin Metals, a joint partnership between Duluth Metals, a mining company based in Vancouver, Chilean conglomerate Antofagasta and Franconia Minerals.

"Already, Boundary Waters users are experiencing the noise of these drilling operations while on wilderness canoe trips," Seitz wrote. A staff member at an Outward Bound camp on the Kawishiwi said he can often hear drilling in his cabin at night.

A public comment period just ended for a Superior National Forest plan to allow 33 permits for exploratory drilling. "This means more roads and ripped up forest in this area, popular outside the wilderness for hunting, hiking, birding, and ATV and snowmobile riding. More importantly, it sets Minnesota down a path toward giant mines at the edge of the most popular wilderness area in America," Seitz wrote.

A 1970s-era mining site on the South Kawishiwi still leaches "a nasty orange soup" into a nearby wetland. "The Friends had the drainage tested in an independent lab, which showed levels of copper, arsenic and other metals and chemicals which exceeded water quality standards and could pose a threat to both aquatic life and human health. This was 36 years after the rock had been excavated, and of course the company that did the digging is long gone," Seitz wrote.