Feds deny request to renew mining lease in Minnesota wilderness area.
'The Obama administration on Thursday rejected a mining company’s request to renew a lease on the southwest border of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, setting in motion a formal review to examine whether all mining activities in 234,000 acres abutting the wilderness should be barred for the next 20 years.
The joint decision by the Agriculture and Interior departments, which found that the region’s ecological richness and unusual hydrology merited special protection from a possible $3 billion copper-nickel mine, highlights the extent to which the president is determined to exercise his executive authority with just a month left in office. While the move by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service does not constitute a rule, it effectively halts construction of any mine in the region and triggers a detailed scientific and policy review of future operations there.
“The Boundary Waters is a natural treasure, special to the 150,000 who canoe, fish, and recreate there each year, and is the economic life blood to local business that depend on a pristine natural resource,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a joint statement with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. “I have asked Interior to take a time out, conduct a careful environmental analysis and engage the public on whether future mining should be authorized on any federal land next door to the Boundary Waters.”'>>>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/15/obama-administration-denies-mining-leases-near-boundary-waters-wilderness-in-minnesota/?utm_term=.37d8c17916b2