Last week, the U.S. Senate voted 50-49 to allow mining for copper within northern
Minnesota’s Superior National Forest, at the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe
Wilderness Area. Why is this important to us in New Hampshire? Why should we care
about something so remote when there are plenty of things here at home to worry
about?
First, a little about the Boundary Waters to see what is at stake. This truly unique region
is a vast interconnected system of lakes surrounded by boreal forests, extending well
beyond the U.S. into Canada. Its forests are home to hundreds of species of wildlife. In
its pristine waters, trout and many other species of freshwater fish abound. Indigenous
people have flourished in this region in harmony with nature for millennia, harvesting
wild rice, fishing and moving among its waterways. Trade of food, furs and other
supplies was well established, long before first contact with Europeans centuries ago.
The Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area attracts many thousands of visitors
annually, who canoe, camp, fish, explore and reconnect with family and friends in the
natural world. Having visited myself, I can attest to the impact on a lucky traveler of the
serene and stunning beauty of this undisturbed special place.
What harm would a copper mine cause in this region? The copper-containing sulfide
ores generate a huge amount of sulfate waste. When exposed to the atmosphere, it
leads to the formation of sulfuric acid, which, in turn, leaches acids and toxins directly
into the adjacent waterways. Once one lake is poisoned, they all are. The entire region
becomes a moonscape.
That is correct. We are opening the door for a moonscape in a special place that
belongs to the American people. These are the People’s Boundary Waters, in the
People’s Superior National Forest. These are public lands protected for the People
since President Theodore Roosevelt set them aside for us in 1909. They exist today in
all their beauty because of those protections, which have been affirmed by successive
administrations. Until now.
The current administration has declared war on many things in the past 15 months. (Has
it only been 15 months?) A war on our public lands is one of those things many of us
may have missed among the countless other assaults. We need to remember that
Superior National Forest in Minnesota is our public land. Places as disparate as Chaco
Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
in Alaska are our public lands. White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire is our
public land as well. All of these are being opened for mining, fossil fuel extraction and
unfettered logging by private companies, thanks to this administration’s war on what we
hold dear.
Our own White Mountain National Forest suffered enormously from unregulated
timbering in the 1850s, leading to massive wildfires and deforestation. Protection and
regulation have been essential to its recovery, which is incomplete nearly 200 years
later. Continued conservation, not more extraction and exploitation, are essential,
particularly in this time of rapid climate change due to ongoing fossil fuel consumption.
Yet this administration not only acts as if climate change doesn’t exist, but it also utterly
disregards the environmental harms of its actions. The Environmental Protection
Agency has loosened or thrown out regulations aimed at ensuring something as basic
as clean air and clean water for the people of our country. Their new aim is evidently to
enable corporations to profit by despoiling what should belong to us. This is a case of,
literally, the fox guarding the henhouse.
The U.S. Forest Service is undergoing a restructuring that aims to hide the effects of
loosened restrictions and ongoing climate change in the People’s public lands. Up to
now, we have had an 84-site network of forests throughout the country dedicated to long
term ecological research and forest management studies. Three quarters of these are
now being eliminated. In New Hampshire, we have had two of these until now. One of
these, Bartlett Experimental Forest in the White Mountains, has been shuttered. The
other, Hubbard Brook in Woodstock, faces an uncertain future.
These are the very places where the long term effects of climate change are being
studied, and best practices for ensuring forest health are being discovered. But in this
administration, ignorance is apparently bliss.
We the People in this country need to stand up and make our voices heard. The way
has been paved for a mine in the Boundary Waters, drilling for minerals and oil near
Chaco Canyon, oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, and more widespread logging in our
New Hampshire forests. But the door is not yet wide open. Legal challenges, and a
clear vote of opposition in the upcoming midterm elections may yet salvage some of
what we are about to lose. We need to take back what is ours.
Millie LaFontaine is a retired neurologist who lives in Concord.