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Ely city council: No need to ‘prove it first’
Adopts another resolution in support of sulfide mining Posted
Keith Vandervort
ELY – With little fanfare and no opposition, the City Council here this week adopted another resolution in support of sulfide mining in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness watershed.
In a unanimous vote, council members agreed to disregard proposals to “Prove it First,” as spelled out in recent federal and state legislation that would require scientific proof before any copper-nickel mining could be permitted in Minnesota without risking pollution to the nearby million-acre wilderness.
Dennis Anderson: Mystery around bears reproduction is a reminder of their balancing act Dennis Anderson, Star Tribune
Minnesota over the years hasn t been quite sure what to do with its bears. Early settlers feared them or killed them for food, and from 1945 to 1965 the state paid $10 bounties to people who dispatched bruins that toppled garbage cans, broke into cabins or otherwise made nuisances of themselves.
Considered vermin, bears decades ago were sometimes gut-shot by Minnesota deer hunters who watched the animals run off to die in distant locations.
All of which began to change when the state declared the black bear a game animal and held its first hunting season for bruins in 1971. That designation polished the animal s image, set in motion its formal management and initiated world-class research by Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff in the agency s Grand Rapids office.
St. Louis County Board joins pro-mining chorus with resolution supporting copper-nickel projects
The move Tuesday came after Iron Range lawmakers urged the establishment of a working relationship with members of President Joe Biden s cabinet. 9:09 am, Feb. 3, 2021 ×
PolyMet is reusing and reclaiming the former LTV Steel Mining site near Hoyt Lakes. (Photo courtesy of PolyMet Mining)
Fears that the state and federal governments may disrupt progress toward copper-nickel mining in Northeastern Minnesota are causing the area s elected officials to react.
Members of the Legislature’s Iron Range Delegation wrote a letter last week to President Joe Biden’s secretaries-designate of the Interior and Agriculture asking them to work closely with the state legislators.
Tom WilliamsGetty Images
None of the president s Cabinet nominees was greeted more happily by more people than his choice of Rep. Deb Haaland to be Secretary of the Interior. Having one of the only two Native American women to be elected to Congress running the executive department most responsible not only for the government s relationship with indigenous people, but also for the land and water and air on which they live and breathe, seemed like a vast historical debt was at least partially paid. In addition, Haaland would be tasked with carrying out the new administration s attempts to roll back the pillaging of public lands for private gain that was one of the primary characteristics of the previous administration . Haaland is enormously popular both in Washington and back home in New Mexico. The choice seemed inspired.