New Bill Would Allow Roads, Airports, and Guard Towers in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Roads and airports in the Boundary Waters? If Senator Lee has his way that could be the reality. Daily, it seems that there’s a new attack on America’s public lands. This is occurring even though over 74% of Americans support public lands, the public lands are seeing record visitation showing a strong desire of the American people to experience what the lands have to offer, and a $1.2 trillion outdoor economy that supports over five million jobs. The anti-public land politicians continue to try and chip away at protections and sell off our lands. Republican Senator Mike Lee (Utah), the guy that tried to sell of your and my public land in the so-called “The One Big Beautiful Bill” or as often dubbed, the “Big, Ugly Betrayal,” is back at it again and this time his bill specifically targets designated Wilderness Areas, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, for development.

This time, Lee and his cosponsors want to amend the Wilderness Act of 1964 to allow “tactical infrastructure” in designated Wilderness Areas within 100 miles of the border. What is “tactical infrastructure” as designed by Lee? It’s fences, walls, surveillance towers, motion sensors, and vehicle barriers. It also allows for the construction and maintenance of roads and even airports — all within designated Wilderness Areas.

That’s directly in conflict with the Wilderness Act of 1964, which set aside these places to be areas where there isn’t human development.

A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.
Definition of a Wilderness Area in the Wilderness Act of 1964

When it comes to northern Minnesota and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, this area has been protected in some form or another for over a century. The protections started in the early 1900s at both federal and state level and cumulated in 1978 with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act. Lee’s bill would torpedo protections that generations of people worked on, and they worked on them because they valued keeping modern development out of the Boundary Waters.

A moss-covered cliff in the foreground with a lake in the middle and Canada in the background. Everything is really summer green and there are stormy clouds in the sky. — *A Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness lake on the border of Minnesota and Ontario. You’re looking into Canada.*

It isn’t like the Minnesota and Ontario border is a hot bed of border incursions. There are more wolves than there are border encounters in a year, and that’s across the entire 547 miles of the Minnesota and Ontario border, even including encounters at the official ports of entry. This bill is wildly disproportionate to the conditions found on the ground here.

Plus, the Border Patrol already patrols these areas. My former neighbor was Border Patrol, and he was paddling in the BWCA for his job all the time. He loved it. It probably also keeps these agents fit, so if they have to give chase they won’t run out of breath.

This bill is another example of the anti-public land bias of Republican politicians that doesn’t align at all with their base. We all love our public lands, even MAGA. This bill just uses the excuse of border security to hammer away at public land protections. It’s something that these anti-public land folks want, and they’ve wanted it for years. It’s time again to step up to protect the Boundary Waters by calling your senators and telling them to oppose the Orwellian-named Border Lands Conservation Act. While you’re at it, give some support to the Friends of the Boundary Waters.