Lisa Demuth Public Lands Environment Minnesota

The Order Protecting the Boundary Waters Expires 90 Days After Walz Leaves Office. Lisa Demuth Wants the Copper Mine.

Walz signed an order blocking the Twin Metals copper-nickel mine upstream from the Boundary Waters. It dies 90 days into the next governor's term. Demuth is 'pro-mining, all mining, including Twin Metals' — and says it can be done 'safer than any other place in the country if not the world.'

MAGA Report Cards · Aug 20, 2026

On Tuesday, August 18, Governor Tim Walz signed an executive order aimed at blocking a copper-nickel mine upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

There's a catch written into it. The order expires 90 days after Walz leaves office.

Which means the person who really decides whether the Boundary Waters gets a sulfide-ore mine in its watershed is whoever wins the governor's race this November.

One of the two people running is Lisa Demuth. The Star Tribune summed up her position in six words: "Pro-mining, all mining, including Twin Metals."

What's actually at stake

The Boundary Waters is a million acres of lakes and forest in northern Minnesota. People take their kids there. It is one of the most visited wilderness areas in the country, and the tourism and recreation economy built around it depends on one thing: the water staying clean.

Twin Metals wants to put a copper-nickel mine outside the wilderness but upstream from it. That word does all the work. Water runs downhill. Anything that leaks out of that site runs into the Boundary Waters.

This is sulfide-ore mining, which Minnesota has never done. It's a type with a long, documented record of leaving polluted water behind. Conservation groups warn a failure would flow downstream and permanently contaminate the wilderness.

And the company that would cash in is not a Minnesota company. Twin Metals is a subsidiary of Antofagasta, a Chilean mining conglomerate.

How the protection got knocked down in the first place

In 2023, the federal government pulled about 225,504 acres of Superior National Forest — the land that drains straight into the Boundary Waters — off the table for mining leases for 20 years.

Minnesota Congressman Pete Stauber wrote a resolution to erase that. It passed the Senate 50-49 in April and the 20-year protection was gone. Every Senate Democrat, including Amy Klobuchar, voted against lifting it.

That vote is what pushed conservation groups to ask Walz for a state-level order. Which is what he signed Tuesday. Which is what expires 90 days into the next governor's term.

So the whole thing now rests on one election.

What Demuth says

Demuth's public statement about the order didn't mention Twin Metals at all. It went after the politics:

"Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar and Democrats in the legislature continue their hostility toward Minnesota mining, taking job growth opportunities off the table before they can even go through the regulatory review process."

She has said before that she supports the Twin Metals project specifically.

In her own words to reporters this week, on why the review should go ahead:

"It provides jobs. It provides minerals and I think we can look better at Minnesota and how we can help with those critical minerals rather than just shutting down the process."

And then the claim worth writing down:

"I believe that we can do the mining safely in Minnesota, safer than any other place in the country if not the world for those critical minerals that we absolutely need and that review process should be allowed to go forward."

Safer than any other place in the country. If not the world.

That is a big promise about a kind of mining Minnesota has never done once, on a site where the water runs into a national wilderness. It is offered as a belief — "I believe that we can" — not as evidence.

The jobs argument cuts both ways

Demuth frames this as jobs versus environmentalists. That framing skips something.

The Boundary Waters already supports jobs. Outfitters, guides, lodges, resorts, restaurants, gear shops — a whole regional economy that exists because people come from all over the country to paddle clean water. Those jobs are here now, and they are the ones that disappear if the water goes bad.

The trade isn't jobs versus no jobs. It's a Chilean conglomerate's mine versus the tourism economy Minnesotans already built, with the wilderness itself as the collateral.

Demuth's statement said mining can be approved while protecting "our beloved outdoors." She did not say how, and she did not address what Twin Metals specifically would put in the watershed.

The pattern

This is a candidate who has been comfortable claiming more than the record supports before.

She took credit for a viral daycare video — and the YouTuber who made it said he had no idea who she was. She had herself elected Speaker of the Minnesota House, and two weeks later the state Supreme Court ruled it never legally happened. And a billionaire who funds abortion bans is bankrolling her run for governor.

Now she is telling Minnesotans that a copper-nickel mine upstream from the Boundary Waters can be done more safely than anywhere on earth.

Voters get to decide whether they believe that, because the order protecting the place runs out 90 days after the next governor is sworn in. There is no do-over on a poisoned watershed.