Joe Biden is the best President in my lifetime. He protected this yesterday. (BWCA)

[Botany]

Last edited Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:12 PM - Edit history (1)

President Biden is the best President of my lifetime he protected this yesterday. (boundary waters canoe area)



https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/01/26/biden-administration-cancels-twin-metals-leases

The Biden administration has canceled two federal mineral leases held by Twin Metals Minnesota, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the company’s bid to build an underground mine for copper, nickel and precious metals on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Those leases, located along Birch Lake in the Superior National Forest, about 7 miles east of Ely and just south of the BWCA, are critical to Twin Metals’ plans. They’re required for the company to access the valuable minerals underground.

The Department of the Interior took the action after determining that the leases were improperly renewed by the Trump administration in 2019.

“The Department of the Interior takes seriously our obligations to steward public lands and waters on behalf of all Americans. We must be consistent in how we apply lease terms to ensure that no lessee receives special treatment,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement.

[MiHale]

1. The 4 loon calls.

Love Loons. They inhabit around 4 lakes nearby their calls are beautiful.

https://loon.org/the-call-of-the-loon/

For most people, the call of the loon is their first introduction to the species. Loon calls have a distinct, haunting quality that has enchanted humans for centuries. In popular culture, these calls have become a symbol of the wilderness. Loons are most vocal from mid-May to mid-June. They have four main calls which they use to communicate with their families and other loons. Each call has a distinct meaning and serves a unique function.

[Hortensis]

2. Yes! tRump renewed leases the Obama admin had denied.

The Biden admin's now funding a previously canceled study that could ban mining in the area for 20 years.

This isn't over, of course. Twin Metals will continue fighting in court and donating to create Republican majorities to resume packing the courts with business agents.

We're going to have to deal them that 20-year setback, and hopefully by then it'll be out of the question.

[CrackityJones75]

3. LOVE this..... But.

We had better be prepared to fight in MN. This is going to be a massive campaign point in MN. This fight has been going on here for quite a while now. We need to start pumping up the impact of our tourism jobs in the area and how many jobs those mines could potentially kill in addition to the water table destruction.

This WILL have implications in 2022 and 2024.

[Botany]

4. How many good clean jobs have been created by the BWCA & Quetico wilderness area

And unlike mining those jobs stay on unlike mining jobs that are gone once the minerals
are gone except for the work on trying to clean up the old mining sites.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. How many have been? How do you define a "good clean job"?

And unlike mining those jobs stay on

Tourism jobs are as fickle as mining, being dependent on the economy, people's ability to travel and their disposable income. The past two years have been terrible for hotels, outfitters and bars and restaurants up here.

[Botany]

7. Are you in beautiful downtown Ely?

2 more questions:

How cold is it right now?

Were you effected by the fires last summer?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. No, it's warmed up to almost 20, and yes.

[Mysterian]

10. Dig the mine and see how that affects tourism

You'll be left with a wasteland and no jobs at all.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Guess what, pushing back on "but tourism!11!!1!!" doesn't necessarily mean I want a mine, either.

Both industries are extractive and leave the people who call these places home at the mercy of outsiders.

[StClone]

21. I live in Northern Wisconsin and understand your concerns

But I don't see the equivalence of Mine to tourism.

We are fighting the huge hog confinement (CFOs) from Iowa in NW Wisconsin and the mining interests. ATVs, and wolf hunting mania aside, give me the tourists, hunters, fishermen, campers, birders, sightseers, kayakers, rentals, outfitters...one is truly extractive (destructive) the other may be detrimental to an extent but they are mostly mutually exclusive. One is a foreign entity taking the investment returns the other is likely longer-lasting.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

24. You're right, they're not equivalent, which is why "but tourism!!11!111" is not the answer to

"what will we do if there's no mine."

[StClone]

25. No rural develpement econmic expert here

...and, it's been a while.

But I have worked with communities, counties, states to find ways to encourage renewable, sustainable, lower-impact economic bases here in Northern Wisconsin. Especially the area beyond the commuting exurbia of the TwinCities, (Polk, Burnett, Washburn counties and areas near the Michigan Upper Peninsula).

Working with diverse things as defunct papermill conversions, increasing access to high-level internet services, and such novel ideas, we even set to attempting to lure Hollywood types to buy up chunks of land for movie movie-making and cultural/artisan guilds.

In conclusion, little was accomplished. I could not find investors to commit because the population was low, fewer technical/experts, social services were lacking, ancillary services were few. People who enjoyed, or were doomed, to these areas were either able to acquire property often settle part-time as a second home, or unable to move out. Poor schools, low social services, alcoholism, Crime (rampant in some areas, worst than big cities) were found.

The result was tourism or extractive industries were the default "industries."

I want to relate also that we studied areas of Colorado as examples and those were areas highly impacted by fires recently (as WI areas have been i.e. Peshtigo fire of the past).

If you have some ideas I am interested. Thanks

[Emile]

6. I had a cassette tape of Loon calls and a radio cassette player

in my Lund boat. I use to have a lot of fun playing that tape loud out on the lake and watching the Loons reaction. I miss Northern Minnesota, maybe this summer we'll take a trip back up to Sure Game Resort in Wirt, Minnesota. https://www.suregameresort.com/

[LoisB]

9. That first photograph! How could anyone think of mining for anything there other than

peace and tranquility?

[Traildogbob]

11. What a picture

Spent a few days in Ely Minnesota for a North American Wildlife Technicians Association for Educators. I really love the waterways without motors allowed. Beautiful country. Canoed a few lakes. And the International Wolf rehab site, amazing. Thank you Joe for fighting for this. He also halted the timber and mining contracts in an Alaskan Coastal Federal Forest area. Thank you Joe. And thank you for that sunset picture. Thank God my visit was at a low point of killer fly attacks.
The stories we heard fro Wildlife and Forestry pros were scary the State Bird!🪰😱

[Traildogbob]

12. And a Walleye paradise.

[Emile]

14. A good shore lunch with freshly caught walleye and cold beer is heaven

on earth. My favorite walleye hole is Sioux Lookout, Ontario!

[Traildogbob]

16. OMG

It was like you could get a Walleye sand-which in every building. I fell in love. The fish is here in WNC but difficult to find and catch. Plus, we have to deal with speed boats, pontoon wakes and jet skis. The no motorized anything on the thousands of waterways was true paradise. Fresh shore side walleye and beer, ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️. Man, I envy you. My favorite fish to eat BY-FAR.

[Aristus]

15. What a shame.

Those would have looked so much better as smoldering slag heaps...

[Botany]

18. Some places just need to be saved

[Rotegard]

17. Loons are wonderful

First time my spouse had ever heard a Loon call was in a northern Minnesota Lake in 2006 outside Itasca. Due to neighborhood wetlands restoration since 2007 they now nest in Minneapolis proper and you can hear them around the chain of lakes. Loons fish by sight and their presence is the ultimate endorsement of water quality.

[StClone]

19. Canada works with U.S. to protect bordering, larger Ontario Quetico & La Verendrye P.P.s

OTTAWA—Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says the United States and Canada have a responsibility to be “joint stewards” of sensitive border waters and Canada has “engaged” with the U.S. on the risk that a proposed copper mine project could pollute one of this country’s largest fresh watersheds.

Freeland, who oversees Canada-U.S. relations, told reporters Tuesday she was “very aware” of the issues raised in a Star exclusive story last week.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2020/02/18/freeland-says-canada-engaged-with-us-over-proposed-minnesota-mine-that-could-pollute-provincial-park.html

[L. Coyote]

20. K & R

Link to tweet

[fescuerescue]

22. From worst leader in history to best leader in history

It's a good time to be alive.

[Hortensis]

23. Just read today that someone found her student debt has "disappeared.'

It's happening to varying degrees for more than half a million borrowers who'd been caught in the same trap. WE DID THAT by electing Biden.

You'll remember this old injustice.

WaPo: Just like that, my student-loan debt disappeared

I was enrolled in Columbia University’s creative-writing graduate program in 2007 when the George W. Bush administration rolled out the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The offer was tantalizing: If you worked in a public service job for 10 years, making 120 federal student loan repayments, your unpaid balance, no matter how big, would be erased.

I borrowed $126,000 in federal student loans...

....I worked as a teacher... I drove an old car and lived in a tiny apartment and started making payments in 2009. Six years into the 10-year repayment agreement, I contacted my loan provider to make sure I was on track. In a stunning exchange that I suspect was encountered by tens of thousands of others with public service student loans, I was told that none of the money I had sent over the previous half-dozen years fell into the category of “qualifying payments.” Those checks were simply not counted toward the 120 payments...

...a technicality was buried in the loan language: Participation in the loan-forgiveness program was not automatic. Borrowers have to indicate they wanted to be in the program, otherwise the lending agencies presumed they would pay the full amount. Had I known this, I would have signed up immediately. Now the soonest I would see the debt forgiven would be 2025. I’d be nearly 60.

Long story short, the Biden administration fixed this.

...the Education Department in October announced changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to try to make it “live up to its promise.” More than 20,000 borrowers would have their loans forgiven outright, the department promised, and more than half a million would be moved closer to forgiveness: Payments previously deemed ineligible would be designated as qualifying. ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/27/my-student-loan-debt-disappeared/

And one day, she checked her student loan balance and found it was zero. She'd fulfilled her agreement -- and we ours.

[Bonx]

26. Joe may be the best president we've ever had.

[Botany]

28. Joe has "mad skills"

he has and still is putting together a new dem party that will be a Juggernaut.

[Peacetrain]

27. Love love the Boundary Waters!!