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Op-Ed Contributors

Protect Minnesota’s Boundary Waters

Walter F. Mondale and

Canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness near Ely, Minn.Credit...Bre McGee/The St. Cloud Times, via Associated Press

MINNESOTA’S Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is one of America’s most popular wild destinations. Water is its lifeblood. Over 1,200 miles of streams wend their way through 1.1 million acres thick with fir, pine and spruce and stippled by lakes left behind by glaciers. Moose, bears, wolves, loons, ospreys, eagles and northern pike make their home there and in the surrounding Superior National Forest.

All of this is now threatened by a proposal for a huge mine to extract copper, nickel and other metals from sulfide ores. The mine would lie within the national forest along the South Kawishiwi River, which flows directly into the Boundary Waters Wilderness.

The prospect of any major industrial activity in the watershed of such a place would be deeply troubling. But this kind of heavy-metal mining is in a destructive class all its own. Enormous amounts of unusable waste rock containing sulfides are left behind on the surface. A byproduct of this kind of mining is sulfuric acid, which often finds its way into nearby waterways. Similar mines around the country have already poisoned lakes and thousands of miles of streams.

The consequence of acid mine drainage polluting the pristine Boundary Waters would be catastrophic. It is a risk we simply can’t take.

Scientific evaluations of the project and the industry’s destructive record point to a major threat to a treasured ecosystem. Poison the headwaters, poison the system. And this mine would poison not just the Boundary Waters but also Voyageurs National Park, which is on the wilderness’s northwest corner, and the adjacent Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario.

In March, Minnesota’s governor, Mark Dayton of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, courageously announced his opposition to the project, calling the Boundary Waters one of the state’s “crown jewels” and a “national treasure.” And in April, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell identified the Boundary Waters as a “special area” that should be re-examined to “better understand the value of the land and water and potential impacts of development.”

The company that has proposed the mine, Twin Metals, is owned by the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, one of the world’s largest copper producers. Twin Metals holds two now-expired mineral leases first issued in 1966, before modern environmental laws were enacted. The Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that manages the government’s mineral estate, is now weighing whether to renew those leases.

As part of its review, the agency has asked the Forest Service whether it would consent to the lease renewals. Fortunately, the Forest Service has said it is “deeply concerned” about these leases and is “considering withholding consent.”

Both agencies should say no to renewing the leases, eliminating the immediate threat of a Twin Metals mine.

But so long as the area remains open for mining, its mineral deposits will beckon. Secretary Jewell should exercise her authority and impose a 20-year moratorium on mining in this precious watershed. Her predecessor, Ken Salazar, used that power in 2012 to block new uranium mining on one million acres in northern Arizona, near the Grand Canyon. Permanent protection could then be sought, either from Congress or the president.

It is irresponsible to jeopardize an irreplaceable resource for something readily available elsewhere. President Theodore Roosevelt, who created Superior National Forest in 1909, implored Americans to “cherish” the nation’s “natural wonders” as a “sacred heritage for your children and your children’s children.”

Do not, he continued, “let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”

Conservative thinking dictates that we manage the Boundary Waters under the “precautionary principle.” If we err, it must be on the side of environmental safety. We must risk no harm to a pristine environment.

In their time, several presidents — both Roosevelts, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter — have acted to defend this irreplaceable wilderness. President Obama should join their company by agreeing to the 20-year mining moratorium.

There should be no copper mining anywhere near the Boundary Waters Wilderness, today or ever.

Walter F. Mondale was vice president under President Jimmy Carter. Theodore Roosevelt IV, the great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, is an investment banker.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Protect Minnesota’s Boundary Waters. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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