ICYMI: Heinrich Delivers Remarks on the Senate Floor Urging Senate Colleagues to Protect Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from Mining

I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota for her endless advocacy for this special place, one of America's true gems, and I do hope to make it to the Boundary Waters this summer.

Last July, I was supposed to be at the Boundary Waters. I had long-planned a trip with my family. It was to be our first time exploring the Boundary Waters. My family made it. I did not.

My wife Julie and my sons Micah and Carter had an incredible time that they will always remember.

They paddled their canoes across lakes.

They portaged from lake to lake.

They slept under a blanket of stars that most people in Washington D.C. could never imagine because they can't see it, and I was supposed to be part of that trip.

Instead, I was stuck here fighting to strip out the public land sell off language from the Republican budget bill.

They sent me lots of pictures afterwards; pictures of the Northern Pike here that my son Micah caught.

My wife Julie was able to spend some really quality wilderness time with both our sons before they went off to their respective colleges for the year.

She basically told me that they ate more food on this trip than most rugby teams.

Like my family, millions of Americans have hunted, and fished, and paddled, and traversed the Boundary Waters.

And in fact, it has an almost religious connotation among sportsmen in particular.

It's somewhat amazing to me to see a Republican party that used to have such fidelity to hunters and anglers basically roll all of the organizations that my colleague from Minnesota rattled off, who said this is not the right place for this.

Organizations like Pheasants Forever Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and on and on and on. But that's where we are today.

Stories from the Boundary Waters, stories of stalking whitetail and grouse are passed down from generation to generation in the Midwest.

Legendary stories of lake trout, Northern Pike and Walleye abound, sometimes with the fish actually getting bigger with each telling of the story.

And the water? As the senator from Minnesota Senator Smith said, is some of the cleanest you will find anywhere in the lower 48.

It is a bucket list, once-in-a-lifetime destination for so many public land owners.

And that is precisely what's at risk with this vote. One of our nation's true crown jewels.

So, let's back up a little bit for folks who don't have a first-hand knowledge of what the Boundary Waters is, where it is, and do a little explaining.

The Boundary Waters is one of the most incredible, intact wilderness landscapes left in our nation.

It is an absolute tapestry of lakes and streams consisting of well over 1,000 individual lakes; 2,000 designated campsites; hundreds of miles of rivers and streams. The Boundary Waters contain the largest contiguous landscape of uncut forest remaining in the eastern United States.

And the 3-million-acre Superior National Forest, in which the Boundary Waters sits, contains fully 20 percent of all the fresh water in the entire National Forest System - an incredible figure.

In fact, this wilderness was so important that President Teddy Roosevelt himself set it aside as part of the Superior National Forest all the way back in 1909.

And almost half a century later, Congress voted overwhelmingly to include the Boundary Waters as one of the original units of the National Wilderness System.

In many ways, Minnesotans rely on the Boundary Waters to support their local economy.

Every year, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness draws more visitors than any other wilderness in the country.

This recreation supports 17,000 Minnesotan jobs, contributes roughly a $1 billion in annual sales, and preserves and shares more importantly a way of life that has been passed down from generation to generation.

And this is an area that is no stranger to threats.

In addition to containing so many of the natural resources that come with wilderness, the area also contains copper.

There's a long history of iron mining in this area. And I grew up the son of someone who worked for Anaconda Copper, the grandson of somebody who was a gold miner.

But I want to talk a little bit about the difference between some of these Iron Range mines that mine ore that is just chemically inert.

It is chemically stable. When you mine for iron, you're basically mining iron oxide, you're mining rust, and then you're turning that back into iron.

This is not that kind of mine. This is a copper sulfide mine, and the company that wants to mine here called Twin Metals, and that sounds so Minnesotan. I think they might have picked it to sound Minnesotan.

It's actually a subsidiary of a Chilean mining company called Antofagasta.

They want to build this copper-nickel mine less than a mile upstream from the Boundary Waters, on a spit of land between two waterways.

Let me explain a little bit about what it looks like to mine copper in a place like the Boundary Waters, particularly when you're mining copper sulfite ore.

The company will have to dig several deep shafts to reach these very deep ore bodies.

They will then remove many millions of tons for processing, millions and millions of tons of copper sulfite ore.

After they remove what copper and nickel is economically recoverable in that ore, they will dump as much as 100 million tons of waste rock and low-grade ore on the site never to be removed.

Deep under the ground, the copper is locked in ore rich in sulfur.

That ore has never been exposed water. It has never been exposed to oxygen or air.

When you bring it to the surface and you let it sit out in a pile, and you expose it to air and water, oxygen bonds with that sulfur, and when you bond that oxygen to sulfur, you get sulfuric acid.

Sulfuric acid is one of the hardest waste products you can imagine to try and control.

The waste rock that has been dumped on site will naturally form sulfuric acid and that acid will then dissolve toxic heavy metals present in the waste rock, and then you have this toxic stew of heavy metals along with sulfuric acid.

There is no plan to remove all this waste from the mine site, so it's basically a ticking time bomb of acid and heavy metals.

Studies by the EPA say that the odds of sulfuric acid polluting the Boundary Waters under this scenario is "highly likely."

I'll do you one better: It has a perfect track-record of polluting water.

That's according to the peer-reviewed study on sulfide-ore copper mining that drove the 2023 decision to ban mining in this area. It's also my personal experience as a former natural resources trustee who had to negotiate with copper companies who polluted water with the same technology.

So it's not just "highly likely."

It is guaranteed.

Sulfide mining in the Rainy River Watershed will cause certain, irreversible pollution to the Boundary Waters.

Think again about eating those fish you caught - or drinking the water you dipped from the middle of the lake.

Because the thing about sulfuric acid poisoning is that it's invisible.

You can't see it, but it makes water unsafe to drink.

Sulfuric acid lowers the pH level of water, changing entire ecosystems.

At high levels, fish that rely on healthy water to live will experience respiratory failure in water poisoned by sulfuric acid.

They will literally drown to death.

They will not be able to reproduce normally, and their food sources will also be tainted.

Meaning, entire fish populations of lake trout and smallmouth bass are at risk.

The sulfuric acid produced by this mine will leach heavy metals like lead, mercury, and copper into that same water.

That will then accumulate in the bodies of fish and wildlife that consume the water.

When people eat meat, fish, with heavy metals, they accumulate in our bodies, too.

This isn't a myth.

It is a virtually guaranteed outcome.

Because we know that plans for the mine include storing over 100 million tons of toxic waste rock on the edge of the Wilderness, upstream of the Boundary Waters.

Think about how much that is. Visualize how much waste rock we're talking about being done and never removed from this mine site.

100 million tons is about 740,000 Boeing 777 airplanes.

It's twice the mass of all the living people on Earth.

It is 500 times the weight of the Empire State Building, sitting there generating toxic acid.

And it's the amount of toxic waste that Antofagasta, a foreign mining company that plans to sell the copper to foreign countries, plans to store on the edge of the largest patch of wild rivers and forests in our country, the place that has 20 percent of all fresh water in our National Forest System.

The damage is really unthinkable, but it's also irreversible because currently we don't have any technology available that is capable of reversing sulfuric acid contamination.

This is bad.

It's so bad that in 2016, even before there was a mineral withdrawal, the Obama administration cancelled the mine's lease.

And in 2023, after years of review and overwhelming public support, a 20-year mineral withdrawal was established in the Rainy River Watershed, home of the Boundary Waters.

That decision reflects common sense: some places are too valuable to gamble with.

With today's technology, if it's a gamble, why not wait 30 years when maybe that technology is a sure bet. But it's not a sure bet today.

That decision also reflected the voices of the American people.

The assessment that led to the mineral withdrawal was completed by the U.S. Forest Service in 2022, and it included hundreds of thousands of public comments, 675,000 public comments.

Over 95 percent of which favored the withdrawal area being withdrawn from non- ferrous mining, sulfide mining.

Today, 70 percent of Minnesotans oppose mining in the Boundary Waters.

But instead of listening to Minnesotans and Americans from all over the country who care about this place, Republicans today are using an unprecedented blunt-force legislative method that includes zero public comment period to make decisions about our public lands without any input from the people to whom those actually lands belong.

And we can't talk about the Boundary Waters without speaking of belonging and Tribal communities.

Three Tribes - the Bois Forte Band, the Fond du Lac Band, and the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa - have extensive treaty rights in Northeastern Minnesota.

These are rights to do things like hunt and fish and gather wild rice.

These rights are guaranteed to them by the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe and have been reaffirmed by federal courts over and over again.

By overturning the Public Land Order with a CRA resolution, Senate Republicans will not only cut Tribes out of the conversation.

They disrespect Tribal treaty rights and directly risk those Tribes' guaranteed access to their traditional way of life and subsistence use of this place.

So, since my Republican colleagues are refusing to include constituent's voices into this process, I will bring a few of those from New Mexico to the floor here today.

Dr. Brown, from Santa Fe, wrote me urging that we oppose this vote.

He says: "I've canoed the Boundary Waters many times and can attest to its uniqueness...with some of the purest water in the U.S., these lakes are visited and admired by thousands of Americans...Pollution of the Boundary Waters would be a tragedy for the nation and the world."

Dr. Merriman, from Albuquerque said: "Please vote no on H.J. Res 140. Some things are worth more than money."

From Lee in Los Alamos: "I am writing to ask you to oppose H.J. Res 140...The [Boundary Waters Canoe Area] is a national treasure - not just for Minnesotans but for me and other New Mexicans as well."

Naima in Santa Fe: "This is a hideous giveaway to corporate profiteers and cannot stand. Please vote NO."

From Dr. Bagne in Silver City: "Any short-term economic benefits would clearly not outweigh the long-term risks to the ecosystem and water supplies. Although it is in Minnesota, many similar public lands in New Mexico could be threatened by...relaxing mining rules. Please oppose."

Judy in Albuquerque: "I am aghast...Please do all that you can to stop this giveaway of our wonderful public lands. This happened despite all the thousands of citizen signatures against the vote."

From Roxane in Rio Rancho: "Please vote against reversing the ban on mining...I am very concerned that the Trump administration is flying under the radar and doing a lot of damage that will be difficult, or even impossible, to reverse."

Amy in Albuquerque: "Please do not allow this to happen. The Boundary Waters belong to all Americans, not to a Chilean mining company with contracts to process ore to China."

Their voices matter because the Boundary Waters are OUR public lands. All of ours.

President Teddy Roosevelt, who had the incredible foresight to protect this beautiful place, once said: "We should see to it that they are preserved for [our] children and [our] children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred."

The way I look at public lands is that they are the closest, most tangible thing we have to being able to represent true Jeffersonian democracy.

They are the thing - like we saw last June - that often unites us across the political spectrum.

If you take these public lands away, you tear away the places where we are most free.

This is an issue of our heritage.

It's an issue of our inheritance.

And it's an issue for Minnesota, but it's not just an issue for Minnesota.

It is an issue for our nation.

It's about something bigger.

It's a test of whether our public lands - a friend of mine likes to say, our public lands that are the anvil upon which we have forged our collective identity.

Can that be stripped from us? Can it be stripped of their protections?

You know, I'm going to summarize this one more time.

We're going to allow a foreign mining company to ship those minerals to China for processing and then sell those back to us with a tariff on top...

How is that America First? It's not.

And to risk this incredible, rare asset, the Boundary Waters, for that?

Well that just seems really short sighted to me, and I would urge every one of my colleagues, I would urge you to vote no on this Congressional Review Act resolution.

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