Mid-Summer Waning Garlic Moon
This is part of a note I sent to the Forest Service about issuing permits for exploratory drilling in Northeastern Minnesota. You can take part by clicking:
“Please accept these comments on the Federal Hardrock Mineral Prospecting Permit Draft EIS (DEIS). I have serious concerns about the project’s potential for harmful impacts to Minnesota’s natural resources.
Caring for our wilderness and natural heritage is a huge responsibility and I commend those of you in the Forest Service who have made it your life’s work. Thank you for your commitment.
This particular instrument, a DEIS focused only on the environmental effects of drilling itself, is disingenuous. And you must know that.
The real environmental impact of drilling, whatever transient effects it may have, will be the mines, if any, that occur in its wake. To not count the certainty of mining in the case of favorable mineral deposits as the first and most significant environmental impact of drilling makes us all look absurd. Please, please add mining to the list of drilling’s environmental impacts. Logic and good policy formation demand it.”