The U.S. Forest Service issued a draft environmental assessment on Thursday to lay the foundation for a proposed 20-year moratorium on copper-nickel mining upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, AP reports.
The plan could doom Antofagasta’s (OTC:ANFGF) proposed Twin Metals mine near Birch Lake, which drains into a river that flows into the Boundary Waters, but it would not affect a separate project, the proposed PolyMet (PLM) mine near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes, which lies in a different watershed.
The proposed $1.7B Twin Metals mine was in the early stages of the permitting process until the Biden administration canceled two mineral leases earlier this year that had been reinstated during the Trump administration.
