Environmental group sues Trump administration over mining rules near Boundary Waters

An environmental group sued the Trump administration Thursday, seeking the release of documents related to a decision last year to end a study of a proposed 20-year mining ban within the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The Wilderness Society filed the lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to try to force four agencies — the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service — to respond to six outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests the group made nine months ago. The law requires federal agencies to respond to FOIA requests within 20 business days. "We're fed up with waiting and we're forced to resort to legal action," said Allison Flint, an attorney for the Wilderness Society. In September 2018, the U.S. Forest Service announced it was cancelling a proposed moratorium on copper-nickel mining within a 365-square mile area of the Superior National Forest south of the Boundary Waters. The agency had proposed the ban — called a "mineral withdrawal" — in the waning days of the Obama administration. As part of that process, the Forest Service also initiated an environmental review to study the proposed ban. The study was set to last up to two years. But last September, after 20 months of the review, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the agency was ending the study, saying the analysis "did not reveal any new scientific information."...MORE