The copper mining conundrum

As we've noted elsewhere at other times, we live in the Southern end of Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District. A number of national observers have rated the contest to represent the human inhabitants of the district as highly competitive ["toss-up"]. We'd be able to relax and just vote a straight Democratic ticket were it not for copper-nickel mining and the positions some otherwise acceptable, even laudable, Democrats have taken on that subject.

whether downstream of PolyMet or Twin Metals, this is worth protecting

Photo by J. Harrington

Our incumbent congressman isn't running again, but he's been largely responsible for legislation that would ignore due process and use legislation to save the PolyMet mine forward in the St. Louis River-Lake Superior watershed and to assist in reinstating copper mining leases for Twin Metals in the Boundary Waters watershed. [Actually, he's the running-mate of one of the current Democratic candidates for governor, who is now serving as Minnesota's Attorney General.] Each of Minnesota's Democratic senators has supported legislation to give PolyMet land at values that are said to not adequately reflect the minerals values of the property. Here's a worthwhile summary of the candidates for the upcoming Democratic primary election. We don't want to see the Republicans flip this district. Neither do we want to see the district represent by someone willing to accept that copper-nickel mining can be safely done under today's environmental regulations, nor leave taxpayers shortchanged of the true value of property by substituting legislative maneuvers for judicial consideration.

The significance of the PolyMet legislation has increased now that there are several "Lawsuits on mining leases near BWCA resist governance by memo and whim." It takes no great feat of imagination to anticipate that the same Democratic powers that would support foreign mining interests over local businesses and environmental quality for PolyMet could use a comparable approach to support Twin Metals.

The Eighth Congressional District went heavily for Trump in 2016 and could end up supporting a Republican candidate for congress. We certainly hope not, but would be almost as dismayed to have one of several of the Democratic candidates win. Perhaps this is our roundabout way of concluding that we really need both ranked choice voting and a political party that is pro environment as well as pro working people, more than pro corporations and their PAC donations. Maybe that's the way it is in some other universe. But then, there's outcomes such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's to give us hope, even though there are no social democrats running in Minnesota in 2018. We're convinced that the same old Democratic party is not speaking to enough of today's issues to be successful far into the future.

The Obsoletion of a Language

By Kay Ryan

We knew it 

would happen, 

one of the laws.

And that it

would be this

sudden. Words

become a chewing

action of the jaws 

and mouth, unheard

by the only other

citizen there was

on earth.

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