Public lands are not to be gifted to foreign mining billionaires.

“Public lands are not to be gifted to foreign mining billionaires.” Duluth News Tribune: 6/29/25.

On May 29 in Colorado, I met Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) advocate and Ely resident Becky Rom, the national chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters. She and her team attended the Outside Festival in Denver — for good reason.

“Attendance at the four-day event … drew 35,000 people, nearly doubling attendance from the debut event last year,” the Colorado Sun reported. Rom noted the great turnout and interest in the Boundary Waters, which wasn’t surprising since the BWCAW is known among hunters, anglers, and other outdoors enthusiasts as “America’s wilderness.”

“Hunters and anglers have long advocated for safeguarding (Northeastern Minnesota’s) watershed, which flows into the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park,” I wrote in a May 21 commentary in the News Tribune. “A sulfide-ore mine here is the wrong mine in the wrong place.” In February, my Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers organization posted a “position statement” on “protecting the Boundary Waters Watershed.”

Unfortunately, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as passed by the U.S. House — and strongly opposed by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers — included reversing a 20-year mineral withdrawal in the Superior National Forest and reinstating Twin Metals’ mineral leases, which threaten the health of the Boundary Waters.

“(Congressman Pete) Stauber inserted provisions in the House budget reconciliation bill (the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’) that would override four federal statutes and numerous agency rules for a single foreign mining company,” Rom wrote in a May 27 commentary in the News Tribune. “He did that because the only way this company (Antofagasta, owned by Chilean billionaires) would be allowed to dig a copper-nickel mine in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is if the rules don’t apply to it. … Further, Stauber would prohibit you, me, or any other person from suing to demand judicial review of this blatant giveaway. But he would reserve to Antofagasta the right to sue to challenge any lease terms it didn’t like.”

This brazen giveaway to a foreign-owned mining company has caught the attention of public-lands advocates across the country, including college students from as far away as New York. On April 11, I was interviewed by two students from Skidmore College in Saratoga, New York. They asked me about my Boundary Waters experiences and advocacy during a 40-minute conference call. A couple weeks later, they had a letter to the editor published in the News Tribune under the headline, “Support bill against mining near Boundary Waters.”

“With a 100% leakage rate, copper-ore mining puts the Boundary Waters at risk of environmental harm, including contamination from sulfuric acid, heavy metals, and sulfate pollution,” the students opined. “Through protecting lands and waters, the recreation industry can continue to flourish and provide local jobs, existing alongside current taconite mining.”

I thanked the students for their excellent letter, and they thanked me right back. “(We) were very inspired by our conversation and wanted to do our part in helping the Boundary Waters,” they said. Their stalwart advocacy reminded me of Becky Rom and so many others who have sacrificed so much to protect our wild public lands, waters, and wildlife.

In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Superior National Forest “for the use and benefit of the people.” Since then, millions of people have traveled to the Boundary Waters, the largest wilderness east of the Rockies and north of the Everglades, to camp, hike, hunt, fish, and paddle. It’s one of the world’s 50 greatest destinations, according to National Geographic, as the News Tribune reported in 2009.

In 1946 Bill Rom, Becky’s father, opened Canoe Country Outfitters in Ely. Three years later Becky was born. Her father became a leader in the fight for the federal Wilderness Act, which passed in 1964. At 14 Becky became the only girl guide in the state—taking families into the woods, carrying their canoes over portages and cooking dinner for them over a fire.[1]

Bill Rom was inspired by his mentor Sigurd Olson, Ely’s legendary conservationist and a national leader of the wilderness movement. But he conceived of the outfitting business while serving in the Navy during World War II as an antidote to his piercing homesickness for northern Minnesota’s wild lake country.[2] “He felt the wilderness was the best economy for Ely, because it was forever,” Becky said.[3] “We’re going to keep fighting,” she emphasized. “I think Antofagasta underestimates us.”[4]

During the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters gathering in Colorado Becky gave me one of her business cards. On the back is a photo of her, at age 16, holding a stringer full of fish in the Boundary Waters. You can still catch fish like that in the pristine waters of the BWCAW thanks to Bill and Becky Rom and many others. Bill even has a lake named after him.[5]

Our public lands are not commodities to be auctioned off, sold, or gifted to Chilean (or any other) billionaires. It doesn’t matter the size of your bank account; you have equal access to them. Public lands are not a left or right issue; they’re an American issue. Join us at Backcountry Hunters & Anglers in the fight to keep public lands in public hands.

David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and formerly of Grand Rapids, is the founder and former chair of the Minnesota Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (backcountryhunters.org). He’s also a former Air Force missile launch officer and author. In 2014, he was recognized by Field & Stream as a “Hero of Conservation.” He wrote this commentary exclusively for the News Tribune and urges action at backcountryhunters.org/take_action#/

Additional/Related Information

-“Minnesotans Rally to Protect Public Lands and the Boundary Waters.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 5/13/25.

-Kaden McArthur. “May 2025 Federal Policy Roundup: New Legislation Introduced in Senate to Permanently Protect Boundary Waters.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 5/5/25.

-Kaden McArthur and Lukas Leaf. “Hunters and Anglers Applaud Introduction of Legislation to Permanently Protect Boundary Waters.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 4/9/25.

-“Minnesota BHA Emphasizes Importance of BWCAW Protections: Minnesota Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers' Position Statement on Protecting the Boundary Waters Watershed.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 2/26/25.

-Garrett Robinson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. “The Legal and legislative Fight to Protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 1/30/25.

-Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. “Top 10 Reasons To Stop Twin Metal’s Sulfide Mining Proposal (Help Protect Northern Minnesota’s Waterways, Watersheds and Wildlife From Twin Metal’s Proposed Sulfide-Ore Mine).” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 1/18/18.

-“Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Report: 100-Plus Reasons To Protect Northern Minnesota’s Waterways, Watersheds and Wildlife From Proposed Sulfide-Ore Mining.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 5/24/17.

-“Sulfide-Ore Mining a Lose-Lose for Minnesota.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 6/4/25.

-“Sulfide-ore mining a lose-lose for Minnesota: ‘Mining should not take place in water-worlds like the BWCAW watershed.’” Duluth News Tribune: 5/21/25.

-“Local View: 'Energy dominance' agenda puts BWCAW at risk.” Duluth News Tribune: 2/19/25.

-“Stand up for public lands, which are on the chopping block.” Duluth News Tribune: 1/13/25.

-“Local View: Project 2025 is taking aim at our public lands.” “From the column: ‘In 2022, outdoor recreation was an $11.7 billion industry in Minnesota, contributing seven times more to Minnesota GDP than mining, quarrying, and oil/gas extraction.’” Duluth News Tribune: 11/13/24.

-“Sulfide Mining Destroys Watersheds.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 10/15/24.

-“Local View: Sulfide mining destroys watersheds.” “From the column: ‘(Twin Metals), I and others suspect, will shut down and declare bankruptcy, leaving a polluted watershed and the associated cleanup costs to state and local taxpayers.’” Duluth News Tribune: 10/12/24.

-“Local View: Project 2025 puts public lands, democracy in peril.” Duluth News Tribune: 8/7/24.

-“Local View: Hunters, anglers, vets, want mining companies to 'prove it first.'” From the column: “Do not ... let a foreign-owned mining company strip our state of its natural resources and turn a pristine watershed into a toxic sacrifice zone.” Duluth News Tribune: 5/30/24.

-“Local View: Mining-threatened Boundary Waters remains a top priority.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 3/8/24.

-“Local View: Mining-threatened Boundary Waters remains a top priority.” Duluth News Tribune: 2/29/24.

-“Local View: Clean water, freedom ought to trump foreign-owned mines.” “From the column: ‘These sulfide-mining guys won’t readily tell you that the history of sulfide mining is ... rife with contamination.’” Duluth News Tribune: 1/11/24.

[1] Josephine Marcotty. “Loved and loathed, longtime activist has drawn a line in BWCA.” Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minn.) Star Tribune: 11/27/16.

[2] Reid Forgrave. “In Northern Minnesota, Two Economies Square Off: Mining vs. Wilderness.” The New York Times: 10/12/17.

[3] Ben Cohen. “‘Canoe King of Ely’ Bill Rom dies.” Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minn.) Star-Tribune: 1/22/08.

[4] Alex Kotlowitz. “Finding Stillness in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters in the Age of Trump.” The New Yorker: 7/17/19.

[5] Alex Kotlowitz. “Finding Stillness in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters in the Age of Trump.” The New Yorker: 7/17/19.