Environmental review that showed how the wilderness surrounding Minnesota mining land will be impacted if the government blocks hundreds of thousands of acres to be used, will be canceled by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the study has been downgraded to an assessment, a less demanding level of review.
According to The Hill, the study was ordered during the final days of the Obama administration, as the Interior Department started a two-year ban on mineral extraction in the 230,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in Minnesota.
It was announced by the Department of Interior officials that the plan meant to determine if the 20-year ban that forbids mining in the designated area should be implemented.
The decision to cancel the more detailed review comes just a month after Trump’s Interior Department announced that the licenses for mining will be renewed and given to a Major Chilean mining company to start working in the area next to the forest land.
The Hill reports that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had met last year with supporters of Twin Metals Minnesota, a branch of the Chilean mining company. However, the Forest Service did not return to their request for comment.
Many Democrats are against Trump’s decision, for fear that the mining will pollute the water sources in the region as the review showed. The Democratic Representative for Minnesota Betty McCollum ripped the Department’s decision to cancel the review.
“Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke cares more about helping mining conglomerates than about protecting the BWCA,” McCollum said in a statement Thursday, adding that “this decision is yet another part of the Trump agenda to turn our public lands and natural treasures into industrial wastelands for private profit.”
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