The Spring 2008 issue of Wilderness News covered a proposed dam at High Falls on the Namakan River west of Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. A project with environmental impacts on both sides of the border, the Ojibway Power and Energy Group (OPEG) is preparing to release its Environmental Assessment as part of a proponent-led approval process.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting that the State of Minnesota looked for ways to sweeten the deal for U.S. Steel to sell land to the state for a state park on Lake Vermilion. The paper questions whether laws were skirted to procure land for the park strongly supported by Governor Tim Pawlenty.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a temporary order requiring all new projects in U.S. Forest Service-managed roadless areas be approved by his office. Apart from the permanently protected Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness, the Superior National Forest contains roughly 62,000 acres of roadless areas, mostly adjoining the BWCAW.
A three-year prison sentence for Boundary Waters terrorizer Jay Andrew Olson was upheld by the Minnesota Court of Appeals this week. Olson was one of six men convicted of participating in a drunken shooting spree that frightened campers on Basswood Lake in the BWCA in August of 2007.
The Spring 2009 issue of Wilderness News, the sister publication of Wilderness News Online is available now. Read highlights and download your copy today.
PolyMet Mining, the Canadian company hoping to develop a copper-nickel mine near Hoyt Lakes, annouced in a media release this week that the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project will not be released until the third quarter of this year.
The draft EIS was originally expected earlier this year.
In July of last year, a lightning strike ignited the Cavity Lake fire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). Over 32,000 acres burned in what was then called …