They Sold Out the Boundary Waters

During a recent vote in Congress, Republicans removed protections from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the most used wilderness area in the country with over 1,175 lakes and interconnected waterways spread across 1.1 million acres in northern Minnesota. It’s a top North American destination for canoeing.

On April 16, 2026, Republicans sold out the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), one of my favorite places in the world, as a gift to a foreign mining company, and as Senator Martin Heinrich, one of the Senators who fought to keep the protections, said on the Senate floor, “to pad the pockets of the President’s buddy from Chile.” The extracted minerals from this Chilean mine would be sent to China.

Before the Republicans voted to strip protections from the Boundary Waters, the forest and waters surrounding the BWCAW were protected from copper-sulfide mining. Despite bipartisan opposition, and undivided opposition from Minnesota’s Senate delegation, and 70% opposition from the people of Minnesota, Republicans went forward with it using a tactic that bypassed the filibuster and that had never been used before to remove protections from our public land in this way.

Republicans used the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows congress to object to a federal agency rule within 60 days. If an objection passes, and the president signs it, then the rule doesn’t go into effect and the federal agency can never propose a similar rule. A public land order, which is a power that Congress granted the executive, is not a rule. The current executive administration changed the definition of a public land order so that this public land order that protected the BWCAW would be considered a rule—whether or not this was legal is unknown.

In this case, the CRA was used against Public Land Order 7917, which is a 20-year withdrawal of land from copper-sulfide mining based on two years of studying the issue. The order was signed on January 26, 2023. That’s 3 years, 2 months, and 21 days after the order went into effect and before the CRA was used and well outside the 60 days limit imposed by the CRA. According to the CRA rules are required to be submitted to Congress, so Congress can decide if they want to use the CRA. Because public land orders are not rules, they were never submitted to Congress in the way required by the CRA, but they were submitted as required and according to law when first ordered. After the current executive administration declared this public land order a rule, they then submitted it to Congress as a rule. Whether or not this was legal is unknown, but unless there’s a lawsuit the effect is the same as being legal.

In the way the CRA was used, because it changed the definition of what a rule is, it not only puts other public land orders in jeopardy, it also puts in jeopardy logging projects, mining projects, and potentially any action taken by any federal agency taken in the last 30 years (and maybe longer). A future administration could change the definition of a rule based on precedent set by this administration. On the Senate floor, Minnesota Senator Tina Smith warned, “What goes around comes around.”

During debate on the bill, none of those who voted to strip the protections from the BWCAW listened to those Senators who debated in favor of keeping the Boundary Waters protected. When Senator Tina Smith from Minnesota, who spoke in favor of the protections, explained the science behind why the public land was protected, the opposition senators weren’t even in their senate seats to listen. They were missing.

Smith explained how the proposed mine in this area would only operate for a decade or maybe two but would create centuries of pollution. When the sulfide containing rock that the copper is contained within, in miniscule amounts, is dug up, pulverized, and exposed to water and air, it creates sulfuric acid, a highly corrosive acid. That eventually creates something called acid mine drainage, which is what happens when the acid leeches other toxic metals, such as arsenic and mercury, out of the waste rock. It devastates ecosystems, kills aquatic life, and contaminates water for centuries.

As Smith explained, in other water-rich areas where these mines have been allowed, the acid mine drainage has been shown to have traveled at least 100 miles through waterways. The proposed mine, in this case, would be under a popular lake just outside the Boundary Waters and across from family cabins. The waste rock would be pilled next to the popular lake. The water from that lake flows into the Boundary Waters, up to the international border, to Voyageurs National Park, into Canada and eventually to Hudson Bay. As the water takes the toxic mine drainage with it, it will irreparably harm the Boundary Waters and other waterways.

The drainage itself could last longer than the United States of America has been a country.

This pollution is what the Republican voted for.

We know it wasn’t the economy that they voted for, because an independent and peer reviewed study from Harvard showed that “more jobs and more income in the region are generated by protecting public lands near the Boundary Waters than by sulfide-ore copper mining.” ¹

After the vote, Senator Smith said, “Republicans privately told me that they knew this was wrong, and I wish they had voted with their conscience.”

What’s next?

If you’re wonder what’s next, you aren’t alone. While this is a devastating loss of protection for the Boundary Waters, it isn’t the end of the fight. There are many other paths to continue to fight against polluting the Boundary Waters. The goal is permanent protection.

As a photographer, I’m going to continue sharing my images and working to get those images to organizations fighting for clean water and permanent protection of the Boundary Waters. I also feel that it is important to speak out about protecting public lands (see: Should Nature Photographers Speak Out?). I recently spoke about how Ansel Adams and other photographers used their images to help get places protected. You can listen to my conversation with Staci L Drouillard on WTIP’s Boundary Waters Podcast.

If you want to keep informed and be part of the community working to protect the Boundary Waters, you can join both the Friends of the Boundary Waters and Save the Boundary Waters.

Both do slightly different work. Friend of the Boundary Waters, now 50 years old, has been working to not only protect the Boundary Waters from copper-sulfide mining and other forms of pollution or issues, but also to help educate the public about the Boundary Waters. They have outdoor educators working in the gateway communities of Ely and Grand Marais. My son has taken courses from their outdoor educator here in Grand Marais. They also offer trip planning and route resources on their website, and they have a great podcast that covers a wide range of recreational topics. Save the Boundary Waters focuses specifically on fighting the copper-sulfide mining issue and protecting the Boundary Waters from the pollution the proposed mine would cause.

My photography business is part of both of their business coalitions, and I donate to both. If you feel as passionate about our outdoor public spaces as I do, you can join either group as an individual or as a business.

I think that it’s important for outdoor photography to testify, and be used as a prophet to help protect what we have, and if what we have is lost, to show the future what was taken away from them and who did it. As Toni Morrison said, all art is political, and to pretend otherwise is to defend the status quo. I hope that you will start to see your photography in the same way.

Future generations depend on it.

Originally published on More or Less About the Photo and used with permission.