Two years after local opposition and lawsuits helped scuttle plans for a redeveloped lakeshore resort outside Ely on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters, developers are back with a new, slightly scaled down approach to reviving the Silver Rapids Lodge.

And while there is plenty of support for updating and reviving the iconic resort built over a century ago along the rocky narrows between White Iron Lake and Farm Lake six miles east of Ely, there is once again pushback from surrounding cabin and vacation home owners who say the proposal does not mesh with the area’s quiet, wilderness-oriented vibe.

Developers envision a revitalized property with a new lodge, bar and restaurant, a pool and spa, along with a remodeled motel and seven cabins.

In addition, the redevelopment includes 44 new “fractional share” cabins on the 60 acre property. Each cabin would have four owners, who would each get 13 weeks to stay at the cabin, or they could rent it out when they’re not there.

The proposal also calls for 33 boat “moorings” – essentially parking spaces for boats– on an unspecified number of docks. That’s down significantly from the roughly 90 boat moorings proposed in the first redevelopment plan.

It’s also a reduction from the 52 moorings on 26 docks that the developers initially pitched in this reimagined project.

Sandy Hoff, President of F.I. Salter Real Estate in Duluth and one of the development partners on the project, said they further reduced that number to 33 after the Minnesota DNR said that the plan for 52 didn’t comply with state and county lakeshore requirements.

“We've listened,” said Hoff. “The number of units has been reduced. The scope of the overall development has been modified, and we are trying to accommodate the feedback that we have heard, so that we truly can try to get the support of those who are most concerned.”

Hoff said he and his development partner Jamie Tatge of Leisure Hotels and Resorts, based in Baxter, Minn., have been getting more support for the estimated $40 million project this time around from area residents. “They understand the need to redevelop this property because it is run down. It's an eyesore,” he said.

But despite the modifications, many in the area remain adamantly opposed to the proposal, which they argue would increase noise, traffic and congestion, and fundamentally alter the character of the area.

“It will transform a peaceful place of natural solitude and beauty into something else entirely– a busy hub with multiple groups of people focused on dining, drinking and partying,” said Mary Zimmerman, who lives about half of the year in a home on White Iron Lake, just a couple hundred feet from the resort property.

Two years ago, hundreds of area residents signed a petition opposing the development and asking for a more rigorous environmental review of the project. Some said it would create a Lake Minnetonka-like party atmosphere at the site, which is just a three mile boat ride from the edge of the Boundary Waters wilderness area.

After Lake County officials approved permits for the resort redevelopment, a local group of citizens and the Minnesota DNR sued to try to block it, arguing the project’s approval violated county and state shoreland development rules. The developers later voluntarily rescinded their permits.

“It’s just not the right plan for this zip code,” said Mary Garbutt, a third-generation White Iron Lake cabin owner who was involved in the effort opposing the resort two years ago.

She would prefer to see the project scaled down even further to better fit with the serene North Woods environment that residents treasure.

“I think we're all realistic that we'd love to see Silver Rapids have the restaurant, have the bar,” Garbutt said. But she calls the density of the current proposal “crazy.”

But others miss the bustling nature of the historic resort from decades past, when it was a destination that added to the Ely area’s character.

“I remember a vibrant, busy place that was an important part of the lake community,” said Jack Tome, who grew up on Farm Lake, about a mile by boat from Silver Rapids. He and his brothers now share the lake home among their families.

Tome says the current resort is a shadow of its past, with limited hours, a smaller menu, and dilapidated docks in serious need of repair. Tome said he was excited when he learned about the proposal to reinvest in the property – and disheartened by the opposition from what he believes is a small but vocal group.

“I want to see Silver Rapids become a vibrant part of the community again,” Tome said. “Someone is willing to make a significant investment in a property that has been an important part of this area for generations. That means jobs, visitors and people spending money in Ely.”

Tome and others say the developers’ investment could be a big boost for the economy in a region in which businesses have been decimated by this summer’s wildfires, which have scorched tens of thousands of acres in and around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Hoff said he and his fellow developers’ plan is to create a resort that blends in with the surrounding area. He said the lodge and cabins won’t be “Wayzata type structures,” referring to the city on the shore of Lake Minnetonka. “They're going to be designed to fit into the environment up there.”

The developers also say they plan to remove several lakeshore RV sites and campsites and address legacy environmental issues, including leaking underground fuel tanks.

The developers prepared an environmental assessment worksheet, or EAW, to analyze the potential impacts of the project. The Lake County Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a hearing on the adequacy of the document on Aug. 17.

Hudson Kingston, who is with the environmental group CURE and is also a Fall Lake Township supervisor who lives near the resort, said it’s a positive step that an EAW was conducted. But he said the document is incomplete and inconsistent and needs to be revised to more specifically address how it would mediate the oil leak and other issues.

“The EAW is a good development,” Kinston said. “It allows the county to take a breath and think about this before they go through a permitting phase. I'm hopeful that everyone will learn something from this process and we can get a better project out of it that benefits the community and the developers.”

If the county approves the EAW the project would then move to the permitting process.

The average residential addiction treatment program can take 30 to 90 days. For people with pets, the inability to find a temporary home for their dogs or cats could be a barrier to getting help. A local animal rescue organization is helping people find a foster parent for their pet so they can be reunited after treatment.

The Bond Between’s respite foster program has been around since 2024 and offers up to 90 days of free temporary foster care for people going through tough life circumstances such as domestic violence or addiction treatment. They recently partnered with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, an addiction treatment center, to help people seeking addiction treatment find pet care.

The Bond Between executive director and founder Rachel Mairose said the most important thing is keeping families together.

“I just think there's so many people out there that love their pets, and they are in a critical situation, and a lot of the reason they keep going is because they have the pets. And in those situations, the worst thing we can do is ask them to give up a family member,” Mairose said.

Mairose’s first respite foster case was with an unhoused man who lived in his car with his Boston Terrier. She said the dog gave birth to puppies in his car during the winter, and he didn’t know what to do.

“I ended up taking her whole family and raising them, and then she and him were reunited, and that reunification was like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I mean, she was crying in her little Boston Terrier way, and he was sobbing,” Mairose said. “Because I was able to provide that 60 days of care to raise her puppies, he was able to work overtime, wasn't worried about getting back to his car to take care of her secured housing.”

Mairose said the man now has a fiancé, a house and six pets.

New partnership

Hazelden will now list the Bond Between and the respite foster program as a resource. Hazelden’s staff will be trained to give out contact information for the Bond Between when a potential patient or a current patient cites pet care as a barrier to either entering or continuing treatment.

“I'm anticipating that now that the word is out, people who hadn't even thought about going to treatment because of a pet care situation now will see this as an opportunity that they could do that, and we'll be seeing a lot more of the folks who need it as well,” Hazelden executive director Lydia Burr said.

Burr said some people opt for outpatient treatment instead of residential treatment because of their pets, even though outpatient treatment is sometimes a lower level of care than what they need.

“Oftentimes, pet care is what gets people out of bed in the morning,” she said. “Addiction, substance use disorder, mental health concerns — these are issues, they’re diseases and diagnoses that really breed in isolation. So sometimes, all they have left is their pets, and that's what's getting them out of bed in the morning. That's what's getting them going during the day, that's their reason for continuing.”

Twenty percent of the Bond Between’s respite clients are working through treatment somewhere in the Twin Cities metro area, the organization’s vice president of community engagement Carrie Openshaw said. Last year, they had about 110 respite animals in their care with a 95 percent reclamation rate.

Taking care of an average foster pet can cost about $500 between vet care and supplies, Openshaw said.

“Pets are well cared for in our program, and we provide all the food and supplies too, so pet owners shouldn't have to worry about anything. And, hopefully, we're returning pets to them in better shape than they came into us. Because we're trying to catch up on any vetting that might have been missed while they were going through whatever they're going through,” she said.

One of the respite pets is Stella, a 1-year-old French bulldog who’s wearing a pink diaper because she was recently spayed. Leia Simon, a marketing manager at the Bond Between, has fostered her for the last month and a half.

“I just saw her sitting in her little cage, and I'm like, ‘You can't sit in there, you're too tiny.’ So I brought her home,” Simon said. “She has been delightful ... She's been a delightful little addition to our home.”

Stella’s nickname in the office is “snorty potato” because Simon can tell where she is from her snorting. Before working for the Bond Between, Simon fostered pets for them as a volunteer for the last 10 years. But Stella is her first respite foster.

“It's not just for me; it's for others, and that's the point,” she said. “If it's giving an animal its last loving home, or it's giving an animal a place to go so its owner can take care of themselves, all those things feel really good to me personally.”

The Bond Between said their goal is to hit double the number of respite animals they foster, which would bring them to 200 cases within the next year.

On a hot April day, Malcolm Lehi maneuvered his Jeep Wrangler over a rough dirt road. He drove past junipers and sagebrush in search of Entrance Spring on land long connected to his tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute.

The cool, mossy spring lies just across the highway from White Mesa Mill, the nation's only remaining conventional uranium mill, which produces yellowcake for nuclear power fuel.

For decades, the mill has sparked debate over whether radioactive contamination threatens human health by getting into the water and the air. Concerns run especially deep in the White Mesa Ute Community, where Lehi and about 200 members of his tribe live some 5 miles south of the facility.

State regulators and the company that owns the mill contend that any pollution associated with it is contained. That's little consolation to nearby tribal members, who — aware of uranium's deadly legacy across the Colorado Plateau — have raised questions about the potential spread of toxic waste. Many won't drink the local water, relying on bottled water instead.

For stories on the science of healthy living, subscribe to NPR's Health newsletter.

Now the tribe's concerns have taken on new urgency as the U.S. pushes to revive domestic uranium production. A federal law, passed in 2024, bans imports of Russian uranium by 2028, increasing pressure to develop domestic fuel supplies. President Trump set a goal to quadruple U.S. nuclear energy capacity by 2050. He issued orders to prioritize mining on federal lands and fast-track approval of mining projects. The Velvet-Wood uranium mine in Utah, for instance, zipped through federal environmental review in 11 days, to the dismay of local tribes who were given one week to offer input.

Trump's goal of quadrupling nuclear power capacity will be hard to meet, because it would require constructing more reactors — which are difficult to build and often meet local opposition, said David Hart, a senior fellow for climate and energy at the Council on Foreign Relations. But data centers and rising electricity demand have intensified interest in nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source, he said. And more states are opening the door to it.

So the effort to obtain the key ingredient, uranium, is underway.

Tension at the White Mesa Mill

The White Mesa Mill, built in 1980 near what is now the Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, is a focal point of this latest uranium boom — and the tensions between local tribal concerns and national economic interests.

Increased demand draws a steady flow of trucks carrying uranium ore to the mill from regional mines, including one near the Grand Canyon where the Havasupai Tribe lives. That ore is trucked through the Navajo Nation. And the mill plans to expand its waste storage, as well.

A former tribal councilmember, Lehi is part of a growing opposition that includes members of the Havasupai and Navajo (Diné) tribes, who are now linked by the uranium trucking routes passing through their lands. The Havasupai and Ute Mountain Ute tribes share concerns that toxic wastewater from uranium mining and milling may move through the ground and poison drinking water for future generations.

A history of distrust

One spring morning in White Mesa, Yolanda Badback gazed out an open door not far from the highway and watched three uranium trucks drive by.

"There goes another one," Badback said with a tone of exhaustion. She is a Ute Mountain Ute member and leader of the White Mesa Concerned Community advocacy group that has been fighting the mill.

The mill receives 10 to 15 trucks each weekday, said Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development at Energy Fuels, which has owned the facility since 2012. The majority pass through White Mesa.

The mill's business is picking up after a quiet 15 years, Moore said. The White Mesa Mill produced 1 million pounds of yellowcake last year; the company plans to more than double that this year, he said. The mill has also diversified into processing radioactive waste from as far away as Estonia and Japan, and received a $725 million conditional loan commitment from the Defense Department to scale up its domestic processing of rare earth elements.

The new rare earths business alone could create 100 permanent jobs, Moore said. About half of the mill's 105 workers are Indigenous; Moore estimated that no more than two belong to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

"When it comes to tribes in the area, I do very much understand their skepticism of uranium," Moore said. "They've been lied to before."

A uranium boom driven by the U.S. government from the 1940s through the 1980s, much of it concentrated around the Four Corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, exposed miners to heightened rates of mortality from lung and other cancers. Federal reviews found that the miners, many of them Navajo (Diné), were not warned about radiation risks even after government scientists understood the dangers. Mining companies left behind thousands of abandoned waste sites that have leached contamination into surrounding soil and water, including over 500 spots on and near the Navajo Nation.

But Moore said things have changed a lot since the 1950s. He said workers today are exposed to 15% to 20% of allowable radiation limits, and outside the mill it's "effectively zero."

Government agencies and Energy Fuels officials have said there's no evidence that the mill is affecting White Mesa's drinking water supply, which comes from a deep aquifer protected by a thick rock barrier known as an aquitard.

"It really is the perfect site for a uranium mill," Moore said.

Scott Clow, environmental programs director of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, said that deep aquifer does have quality issues — including arsenic, iron, and manganese — but the public drinking water is filtered and safe to drink.

Adam Wingate, uranium recovery manager at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said he understands why some residents are concerned. White Mesa is downslope in terms of underground water flow from the uranium mill.

If locals hear about the plume of contamination in a different, shallower aquifer beneath the mill — even if it's not the source of their drinking water — and their own water tastes funny, "that's a scary spot to be in," he said. But based on available evidence, Wingate said, locals' "health is not at risk because of the mill."

Even so, Lehi and Badback said that the tap water smells of sulfur and has a milky color, and that people in White Mesa typically don't drink it.

"I don't trust it," said Badback, whose family has been fighting the mill for decades. "My main goal is to shut the mill down."

An annual spiritual walk and protest sponsored by Badback's group has grown over the past decade amid deep distrust rooted in uranium mining's history. Much of the opposition centers on the mill's toxic waste, which is stored in five lined pits called tailings cells occupying 284 acres of land.

Badback vows to fight expansion plans that include new tailings cells located about a quarter-mile closer to the White Mesa community than the current ones. Moore said the cells will be triple-lined per modern standards.

"They want to expand south towards my reservation," Badback said. "That's the reason why I am standing up and doing whatever I can to stop that from happening."

Concerns about air quality

At a No Kings rally in March in Moab, about 80 miles north of White Mesa, Badback gave a speech and staffed a table offering T-shirts and information.

"No Uranium," the T-shirts read. "Protect White Mesa Ute Community."

In 2021, her tribe passed a resolution stating that the White Mesa Mill "has had severe health impacts on the residents of White Mesa and should cease entirely."

While their psychological stress is palpable, other health effects have been hard to prove.

A 2023 federal health assessment concluded that radiation levels measured at the tribe's air monitor in the center of White Mesa between 2013 and 2019 were unlikely to harm human health. But the authors said they could not evaluate whether the mill's radon emissions could affect bordering properties or residents. They recommended that the tribe collect air samples closer to the mill, during times of heightened mill activity.

In December 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency found the mill was violating the Clean Air Act by failing to cover one of its tailings cells with liquid to limit emissions of radon, a known cause of lung cancer. The EPA called the violation "egregious in nature and duration" and temporarily barred the mill from receiving waste from Superfund cleanup sites.

The mill corrected the problem, according to state regulators, and passed its latest air quality review in 2025.

Still, some White Mesa residents remain uneasy. Badback and Lehi complained of odors, which they attribute to the mill, that smell like chemicals or rotten eggs. She has raised concerns about air quality and rates of cancer and asthma, which are being explored by a University of Utah health survey.

Moore denied that any odors from the mill could be smelled beyond the mill parking lot.

Utah air quality officials said the state does not conduct ambient air monitoring in White Mesa and does not regulate odors.

Watching the water

That spring day, Lehi continued to look for Entrance Spring. On the horizon lay the silhouette of Sleeping Ute Mountain, a landmark of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, said to be the body of a great warrior god.

Along the way, Lehi pointed out a circle of stones that he thought looked like an ancestral burial site. After parking the Jeep, he walked down a faint trail through a lush grove of willows and found his way into a streambed that he reckoned would lead to the spring.

The tribe doesn't rely on the spring for drinking water. But it's one of the seeps and springs that the tribe, the state and the company monitor, because they offer clues to whether the mill's waste ponds are leaking into a less protected aquifer.

In the late 2000s, an EPA report found elevated contamination by radionuclides — atoms that emit radiation as they decay — at Entrance Spring. EPA water samples found that uranium concentrations at times exceeded the federal drinking water standard. EPA and U.S. Geological Survey fieldwork suggested the uranium at Entrance Spring came not from leaking waste ponds but from dust that blew off the mill's ore storage pads.

The latest tests from 2025 showed Entrance Spring had uranium levels at 22.5 micrograms per liter (µg/L) — within the federal drinking standard of 30 µg/L but still elevated.

Clow said the tribe continues to keep a close eye on the seeps and springs.

"We're concerned about the pollution of those springs," he said. "We are looking towards many generations in the future here."

Clow is also closely watching the Burro Canyon Aquifer, which lies beneath the mill's toxic waste cells and feeds the local springs. A plume of chloroform and another of nitrates already pollute the aquifer, said Wingate, with the state. He said Energy Fuels is pumping out the contamination.

When contaminants increase, it's hard to prove whether they stemmed from natural causes or mill activity, since substances such as sulfate and manganese occur naturally in the local bedrock. So Clow, the company and state officials continually debate whether the tailings ponds are leaking.

What's not in dispute is that the mill produces radioactive waste — and once that exists, it can linger for tens of thousands of years.

Lehi followed the stream to where it ends in a curved grotto — the site of Entrance Spring. Water oozed from a rock face into a pool, offering cool relief from the desert. Lehi looked around with wonder at the dripping green moss. A descendant of medicine men, Lehi said he feels a duty to protect the landscape as his ancestors did, even if the tribe doesn't currently use this spring for drinking water.

 "Water is life," Lehi said, "because that's where we all began."

This article was supported by The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado-Boulder's Center for Environmental Journalism.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

Copyright 2026, KFF Health News, NPR

Mid-summer days are typically the peak time for Minnesotans to spend time enjoying the state’s many lakes.

But Anne and Joe Nicklaus, year-round residents of White Sand Lake in Baxter, spent Friday in mud over their ankles, trying to load their pontoon onto a trailer and hoist it out of the water at the public access.

Because of the lake’s low water level, Anne Nicklaus said they’ve only used the pontoon once since Memorial Day.

“Lake life is awesome, but this is not a nice time with the water so low,” she said.

Recent weeks of below-normal rainfall and above-average temperatures have caused water levels in many lakes to fall, frustrating property owners and cutting into boating, fishing and swimming during the height of summer.

Lake levels around the state are low, but the steepest drops are in northeast and north-central Minnesota. Some lakes in Cass and Hubbard counties are up to 4 feet lower than 2020.

In north-central Minnesota, a persistent drought stretching several years has created a “storage drought,” depleting lakes, streams and groundwater.

That part of the state has received a total of 12 to 16 inches less rain than normal over the past four years, said Luigi Romolo, state climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

“That repeated accumulation of deficit in water has made the area a lot more susceptible to drought,” Romolo said. “The lake levels, the stream flows, groundwater levels are a lot lower than they should be based on what the drought conditions are today.”

Recovery won’t happen quickly. Romolo said it could take months – or even more than a year – of above-normal precipitation to restore lake levels and soil moisture.

“One wet year might not be enough,” he said.

Winter snowpack also helps determine lake levels and soil moisture. Midwinter thaws, as in Minnesota in recent years, send melting snow downstream instead of allowing it to soak into the ground, replenishing soil and groundwater.

“What we really need to do to get our soils and our lakes and our groundwaters filled back up is we need winters where we can get snow on the ground, hold that snow on the ground and then melt it in the spring,” Romolo said.

Complicating the problem is water consumption increases during dry conditions as people use more to irrigate crops, lawns and sports fields.

The DNR says conserving water is always important, but critical during drought years.

Some benefits of low lakes

Low lake levels can be an annoyance, but fluctuations in water levels are a natural cycle and beneficial to many plants and animals, said Heather Baird, lake habitat supervisor with the DNR’s Brainerd office.

"Our low water years is really when our aquatic vegetation bounces back,” Baird said. “You can have bulrush seeds and bur-reed seeds lay dormant in the soil until we get a dry period. And then they germinate."

Those aquatic plants are important for fish and wildlife habitat to maintain lake health and prevent shoreline erosion, Baird said.

Every fall, thousands of bird lovers stand far above Lake Superior, on Duluth’s Hawk Ridge, and watch as thousands of raptors soar overhead on their way south.

But for all of their abundance, even majestic osprey, hawks, eagles and falcons are affected by the steep declines in bird populations across the western hemisphere.

In his gorgeous new book, naturalist and conservationist Robert Macfarlane asks, “What is lost when birds are lost? Above all, the creatures themselves, in their own splendor and right. And for humans — language, story, beauty, possibility, imagination, lifts of the spirit, ways of being otherwise. Birds are our place-makers, memory-keepers, calendars and clocks. They stitch the world’s parts together: earth to sky, river to woodland, mountain to sea, country to country, hemisphere to hemisphere.”

BOOKSHOP.ORG

The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss

Go to MPR's Bookshop to purchase this title and support local indie bookstores.

Macfarlane’s new book, “The Book of Birds,” finds him collaborating once again with artist Jackie Morris for a beautifully illustrated ode to birds. This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Macfarlane joins Kerri Miller to talk about the birds he loves — even though he says he’s not really a birder — and lament the disappearance of so many birds from our planet. His hope is that “The Book of Birds” will reignite a sense of wonder because “we will not save what we do not love.”

Guest:

• Robert Macfarlane is an award-winning writer, who has authored many books about nature and our interconnectedness. His new book, “The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss” was co-created with artist Jackie Morris.

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Along Highway 65 on the Nett Lake sector of the Bois Forte reservation, just south of the Canadian border, the forest runs to tall red and white pine and blue spruce. Lance Hill is the realty manager for the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, and a citizen of the band. He has watched it buy back land the Bois Forte band lost more than a century ago.

“It hit a lot of positive notes with the band,” Hill said. “Yes, we finally get to get our land back.”

He turns his car down Palmquist Road, and the forest changes. Stands of younger, leafier aspen and birch grow back fast on ground that was logged hard for decades.

That younger forest is doing something unusual. It is helping to buy back the land it grows on.

In 2022, the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe reacquired about 28,000 acres inside its own northern Minnesota reservation, land it had lost more than a century ago to federal allotment and tax forfeiture. By the band’s account, it is the largest tribal land return in the United States. The band could not afford to buy it outright. So, it turned to carbon offsets as a way to generate revenue.

As a forest grows, it pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and stores it in wood and soil. A company that wants to offset its own emissions can pay for that stored carbon, one credit for every metric ton. Bois Forte will let most of these acres grow, sell credits for the carbon they hold, and use the money to pay off the loan it took to buy the land back. It has enrolled 22,000 of the 28,000 acres in the project.

The National Indian Carbon Coalition helped guide the project and calls it a model for tribal nations across the country. It is also an early test of a new method built to fix the flaws that have dogged carbon offsets, and one of the first times a large landowner has put that method to work.

For many in the band, it was hard to accept. When Hill and others explained that Bois Forte would get 28,000 acres back at no cost to its members, some people struggled to believe it.

“There was a lot of distrust,” Hill said. “When they hear pieces like we’re going to give you back 28,000 acres, and it does not cost anything, that almost sounds too good to be true. They were like, I got to see it.”

More than a carbon offset

The National Indian Carbon Coalition, a Native-led nonprofit that helps tribes build carbon projects on their own land, has been working with Bois Forte for the past several years. The coalition is a program of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, the organization that helped the Bois Forte band finance the purchase of the land through its lending arm.

Bryan Van Stippen leads the National Indian Carbon Coalition. He says carbon offsets are a means, not an end.

“We talk about the carbon markets and ecosystem markets as a tool in the tool chest,” Van Stippen said. “Our mission at the Indian Land Tenure Foundation is Indian lands in the Indian hands. That's what we're trying to do.”

For Hill, the return is about far more than money.

“When you bring a lot of land back, it’s going to make people feel good,” Hill said. “Because we can practice our ways. We got more space to do it.”

The parcels that make up the band’s carbon offset project are scattered throughout the Nett Lake watershed, where the band harvests wild rice, or manoomin, central to its culture and diet.

Hill said letting the forest grow protects the water the rice depends on and restores habitat for the animals the community hunts. The band chose to track moose, wild rice and pink lady slipper flowers as an added measure of the project's health.

For now, Hill says the plan is mostly to let the forest rest. The band's carbon plan calls for letting forest stands grow rather than harvesting them, stepping in only when fire, pests or invasive species require it. Prescribed burning is part of the design, a way to restore a natural fire cycle and reduce the buildup of fuel that could feed a larger wildfire.

The Bois Forte band’s carbon offset project has a duration of 40 years. The band expects to repay the loan it took to buy the land in about 20 years, using carbon revenue. Because a fire or an insect outbreak could release some of the stored carbon, the project sets aside a share of its credits as insurance.

A market that has drawn doubts

While the land return is complete, the carbon science behind it is far less certain in a market that has drawn years of criticism.

Investigations and academic studies have found that many forest carbon offsets don't deliver the climate benefit they promise. Some projects were credited for protecting forests that were never in danger. Others claimed to store carbon that later burned. The criticism has been broad enough that the industry has spent the past several years trying to rebuild trust.

Whether the climate benefit is real is a harder question, and the answer depends on how the stored carbon gets counted.

One of the biggest doubts about carbon credits involves a concept researchers call additionality. Grayson Badgley is a research scientist who studies carbon offsets at the climate nonprofit CarbonPlan.

“You don’t want to pay somebody to not chop down trees that they were never going to chop down anyway,” Badgley said.

He says a carbon offset is sort of like draining a bathtub while the faucet is still on.

“What we’re doing with offsets is we’re basically trying to make that drain to be a little bit larger, and so if that doesn't actually happen, the water just keeps on rising, and in the end, we still got ourselves a bit of a problem,” Badgley said.

A new method for counting stored carbon

The Bois Forte project runs under a newer method, designed by the carbon registry Verra to answer earlier criticisms. Older projects set their own baseline, each one essentially predicting how much logging it was preventing.

The method, called VM0045, doesn't let a project grade itself. Instead of a fixed prediction, it uses what is known as a dynamic baseline, comparing the project against real, similar forests elsewhere, measured over time by the U.S. Forest Service, to see whether the protected land stores more carbon than comparable woodlands that aren't enrolled.

An independent body set up to certify credit quality has approved the method as one that meets its standards. Approval means the method is sound on paper. Whether it holds up in a real forest is a separate question.

“Dynamic baselines are a step in the right direction,” said Badgley. “But they're not a silver bullet.”

Everything depends on honest comparisons, Badgley said. Match a lightly managed forest against intensively logged ones, and it will look like it is storing extra carbon when it is only different. He said it's still early.

“We’ve really only had a chance to see the starts of projects,” Badgley said.

Bois Forte is among the first large landowner projects to use the new method, and its credits haven't reached the market yet.

Would the land have been saved from logging anyway?

The credits depend on an assumption about what would have happened to this land without the project. The project is built on the premise that without it, these forested acres would have continued to be logged. If the forest was already headed for protection, the companies that purchase these credits, and their customers, are buying a promise to save trees that were not in danger.

In 2020, the timber company PotlatchDeltic sold these acres not to another logging operation but to The Conservation Fund. In a news release at the time, the nonprofit pledged to keep the land “forested and sustainably managed as working timberlands.”

By the time Bois Forte acquired it, the land had already passed out of the timber company's hands and into conservation ownership.

PotlatchDeltic described the sale as part of a long-planned withdrawal from Minnesota meant to "maximize shareholder value through rural real estate sales." The company called the land "ideal for conservation."

From the seller's side, these acres were being steered away from timber, not toward it.

Asked about the sale, Van Stippen said the outcome was never certain.

In an email to MPR News, Van Stippen said the timber giant “could have just as easily sold this land to another timber company.” Without the carbon financing, Van Stippen added that the Bois Forte band might not have secured the land before it slipped back into other hands.

One conversation at a time

The band built a working group across its departments, held open houses, ran a public comment period, convened its elders, and reserved the right to refuse buyers it doesn't want, including any fossil fuel producer. Any final decisions rest with the tribe’s elected officials. Even the big conservation groups involved, Van Stippen said, are kept in their place.

Their role, Van Stippen said, is to “stand outside the tribal council room” while the band decides. “You do not run the show,” he said. “The tribe runs the show.”

Researcher Grayson Badgley does not dismiss projects like the one at Bois Forte. For him, the best way to think about most forest offsets, he said, is not as cancelling a company’s emissions but as something closer to a donation.

“I want there to be trees in my local community,” he said. “That's better than nothing, but it doesn't actually cancel out my emissions.” The forests are worth protecting, he said. They may just not carry the precise climate guarantee the market promises.

For Hill, the project was never really about carbon. He talks about distrust, land loss and about eventual repair.

“One conversation at a time,” Hill said, “goes a long way to recover that trust.”

This story comes from the Upper Midwest Newsroom, a public media collaboration between Wisconsin Public Radio, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Prairie Public in North Dakota and Minnesota Public Radio News made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Gov. Tim Walz says President Donald Trump is to blame for failing to prevent a series of cyberattacks last week, and for failing to determine who was responsible.

At a press briefing Wednesday, Walz said he has not heard updates recently from federal investigators looking into the attacks. But he said he’s concerned about reports from several media outlets that officials suspect Iran is behind the attacks.

“This is the case of a war of choice by the president of the United States against Iran. That country struck into the heartland of America through cyberattacks that, had not been found by Minnesota and not stopped, could have immense consequences,” Walz said.

Federal investigators have not publicly confirmed any suspects.

The attacks targeted several local water systems in Minnesota and in at least seven other states. State officials say there was no contamination or loss of service at any of the water systems, but parts of them went offline temporarily.

Last week, when asked whether Iran could be responsible for the attacks, President Trump blamed Walz.

"You know who's behind it? Minnesota, because they're grossly incompetent,” Trump said. “I think the governor's behind it. I don't think there was an Iranian cyberattack."

Trump did not give evidence for those claims.

On Wednesday, Walz criticized Trump’s response.

“Can you simply imagine George Bush lashing out at the mayor and the governor of New York on 9/11 when we were attacked outside?” Walz said. “That is exactly what happened Friday, and thank God it wasn't the extent of the injuries on this.”

“I don't hide my great anger about this… because Americans' lives and Americans' economy and America's security is being put at risk by the very individual who started this war and then refuses to help the states in defense of that,” Walz continued.

State and federal authorities are still investigating the attacks. Workers at the water systems say they are working around the issues and trying to step up cybersecurity on tight budgets.

State and federal authorities continue to investigate a recent coordinated cyberattack on Minnesota municipal water systems.

Hackers disrupted technology controls at water towers and treatment plants in more than 30 Minnesota communities last week.

The FBI says water and wastewater sector utility companies in at least seven states have reported incidents. Some intelligence officials have told media outlets that Iran is suspected to be behind the attacks, although the federal government hasn’t officially confirmed the source.

Some experts say water infrastructure in Minnesota and across the U.S. is in danger of more attacks in the future, and funding isn’t keeping pace with the rising threats.

One of the cities hit by last week's cyberattack was Braham in east central Minnesota, which has about 1,700 residents. Hackers targeted the computerized system that controls the city's well and water treatment plant.

An alert water plant operator noticed the problem last Monday. Since then, Mayor Nate George said the city's water treatment plant has been disconnected from the Internet to prevent more attacks.

There are two people in the public works department, George said. The city's small staff is operating the plant manually instead of remotely, “so you cannot make any changes to the plant or any treatment whatsoever unless you are physically there inside the plant,” he said.

The city is getting information from the federal government about the cyberattack and weighing its options for mitigating future risks.

But adding another staff member or new cybersecurity technology would strain the city's budget, he said. It depends heavily on state aid for local governments that George said has remained flat, even while costs rise.

"It's not a question of we want to be fancy with new technology,” he said. “How do we continue to afford to provide the basic services that we're required to provide, while still being compliant with state or federal law?"

‘A lot to put onto municipalities’

Cities across Minnesota and the U.S. are dealing with increasingly complex threats to their water infrastructure, even as funding support has lagged.

Managing today's water systems requires a high level of expertise — not just in engineering, but in technology, said Bonnie Keeler, who directs the Water Resources Center at the University of Minnesota.

Those systems include high-capacity wells with sophisticated pumping systems, tanks, water towers and a complex network of pipes and pumps, Keeler said.

“Every piece of that infrastructure has its own IT system, its own sensor network, its own monitoring system,” she said.

Historically, water infrastructure has been underfunded, Keeler said, so many cities lack the resources to constantly update their computing systems to keep up with rapidly changing cyberthreats.

Many cities are also faced with an aging workforce, competition for IT and engineering talent and cuts in federal funding, Keeler said.

"So to add on cybersecurity concerns on top of what already is aging infrastructure that suffered from decades of disinvestment is certainly a lot to put onto municipalities,” she said.

The challenges extend beyond Minnesota. Although the U.S. water sector is considered critical infrastructure, it's fragmented across tens of thousands of local public works departments.

They’re often underfunded and staffed by water engineers rather than cybersecurity professionals, said Carole House, a former National Security Council special advisor for cybersecurity and critical infrastructure policy under the Biden administration.

"A lot of attackers can take the path of least resistance in targeting this really high-value sector and deliver maximum civilian disruption for minimal effort, given the current state of security across the water sector,” House said.

She also worries that the nation's water systems are now more vulnerable after recent funding cuts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The latest attack is likely to prompt calls and legislation to increase funding to make sure the nation's water systems are secure.

Minnesota's water systems were attacked last week — and we weren't alone. Seven states were targeted in all. That's according to new reporting done by the New York Times over the weekend. The Times also reports that federal officials suspect Iran may be behind the attacks, although the investigation is still ongoing.

Plymouth was one the cities that dealt with the cyber attack. Michael Thompson, public works director, says it wasn’t their drinking water systems that went offline but their sanitary system and two water towers.

Thompson also shared with MPR News that since last week's attack, there have been more attempts to hack into Plymouth’s water systems, “even though there's been attempted intrusions since those have all been blocked, but we continue to monitor.”

Faisal Kaleem is a cybersecurity expert with Metro State University. He joined Minnesota Now to talk about the cyberattack.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

A St. Paul iron foundry is shutting down, after years of legal battles over its emissions.

The foundry announced the closure Thursday, just over a week after appearing in court over a challenge to its permit. Regulators with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency were trying to revoke it, and said the foundry has a track record of noncompliance with the state’s air pollution laws.

In its closure announcement, Northern Iron said the facility is operating legally but decided to close down because of the uncertainty amid that court case and other legal challenges. In a statement, the foundry’s chief administrative officer Tierney Grutza said.

"We are deeply disappointed that, despite years of investment, collaboration and good-faith efforts to address environmental and permitting concerns, we were unable to reach a path forward that would allow Northern Iron to continue operating," Grutza said.

Northern Iron has long faced criticism from both regulators and local residents in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood. In 2023, state regulators fined the foundry, after an inspection found that operators had removed some of its pollution control equipment, in violation of its permit.

Regulators then required the foundry to apply for a new permit. They said those permit applications all came back incomplete.

Foundry leaders denied regulators’ claims that the facility is emitting too much pollution. The MPCA based that claim on modeling from the foundry’s reports, which they said indicated that the foundry was emitting higher-than-allowed levels of particulate matter and lead. But the foundry said air monitors nearby haven’t found evidence of excess pollution. Foundry leaders have accused the MPCA of overreaching in its attempt to revoke the permit.

A spokesperson with the MPCA said the litigation and the agency’s attempt to revoke the permit were consequences of Northern Iron’s incomplete permits — not the fault of regulators.

“The MPCA gave Northern Iron multiple opportunities to submit required information for its permit, and we exercised every authority we had to compel the company to submit necessary information,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Local residents have advocated for the foundry to close. One neighbor, Brittney Bruce, filed a class action lawsuit against the facility last year. She said she frequently finds dust from the foundry inside her house across the street from the foundry. She bought air purifiers for her home and said a tenant in her duplex moved out over concerns about air pollution.

In a statement, Bruce and several other organizers said they welcomed the news of the closure.

“I’m shaking with joy,” Bruce said. “No one deserves to be polluted in this way.”

Mel Lorentz is a local resident and environmental lawyer who has worked with neighbors to advocate for a shutdown. She said she’s grateful that the MPCA took legal action.

“It's hard to overstate the relief that comes with knowing that the largest stationary source of lead and particulate matter in the county is not going to be operating right next to houses anymore,” Lorentz said. “Companies should not be allowed to do whatever they want.”

The class action lawsuit remains open. The plaintiffs are asking for monetary damages from Northern Iron. Lorentz said the closure of the facility doesn’t mean that lawsuit will end.

The MPCA spokesperson said the agency does not yet know what the next steps are in its ongoing court cases with Northern Iron.

Northern Iron leaders said they plan to completely close down the facility by the end of the year. They anticipate laying off 86 workers in the process.

The main entrance of Como Park Zoo & Conservatory in St. Paul is busy with strollers and chatty kids on a hot weekday afternoon. Below all that, in a tiny basement room marked “biosecure,” zookeeper Allison Pizel tends to one family in particular.

“This is Meatball,” she said, holding a brown blob of a toad in a gloved hand. Meatball is a survivor, as the only member of Pizel’s breeding program to make it from egg to tadpole to toad in 2025. Meatball also belongs to one of the most endangered amphibian species in North America: the Wyoming toad.

Como is one of seven zoos, plus two other breeding sites, that are working with wildlife professionals to pull the toad from the edge of extinction, by building up its population and reintroducing it to its home range.

The species is native to a single mountain valley in the state of Wyoming, called the Laramie Basin. Meatball has never been there; she grew up in the room full of tanks, where she and other toads spend their days eating crickets and mealworms.

Each year, Pizel puts some toads in what she describes as a fancy refrigerator for a short hibernation. Then, she pulls them out to breed. She gives them hormones and sets up “an ancient CD player” with their croaks.

This year was much more successful than last. Pizel recently FedExed about 3,000 tadpoles to Wyoming to be reintroduced. She blames last year’s poor numbers a couple factors. Some toads died in hibernation. And she bred one-year-old males, who are often too young to successfully fertilize eggs.

Pizel also keeps some tadpoles to let them morph into toads in captivity. Some will breed future generations and others will go to Wyoming as adults, with microchips to help track their survival.

She does much of this work alone, and avoids contact with other amphibians, to protect the toads from a deadly skin disease called chytrid fungus. It affects many amphibians, including 20 species in Minnesota, she said, but the Wyoming toad is particularly vulnerable.

The species has suffered not only from disease, but also pesticides and habitat loss. By the mid-1980s, people thought they were gone for good, according to Wendy Estes-Zumpf, herpetological coordinator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

“They were accidentally rediscovered at a private fishing pond out in the Laramie Basin, and that populations seemed to be doing really well,” she said. “But it started crashing in 1989.”

Biologists tried to rescue the species by bringing those toads into captivity and the breeding program was born. Estes-Zumpf says all the Wyoming toads alive today are descended from about ten individuals, a puddle of a gene pool.

“Genetic diversity is what helps species adapt to new threats, diseases,” Estes-Zumpf said. “That's sort of the biggest issue in trying to help them battle chytrid fungus.”

That’s where Derek Benson comes in. He leads amphibian conservation at the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Omaha, Neb. He is also in charge of what’s called the studbook for Wyoming toad recovery. Benson tracks births, deaths and breeding pairs across all the sites to try to squeeze as much diversity out of the gene pool as possible. Today, there are about 650 individual toads in captivity, he said.

“Over the last ten years or so, we have increased that genetic diversity,” Benson said. And each of those years, he said, toads have bred in the wild, another sign of progress.

Despite some wins, the population still can’t sustain itself. It faces major obstacles, including climate conditions. Some of the toads’ habitat in Wyoming is running dry, Wendy Estes-Zumpf said, and they need water to live and reproduce.

“We had a drought last year, and a lot of our sites didn't have sufficient water for tadpoles to metamorphose. This year it's even worse,” she said. “We're in an epic drought, and we're really limited in where we can release tadpoles and toads right now.”

The lives of these toads have always been sort of unlikely, she said, which is part of what she loves about them.

“They’re not agile jumpers like frogs. They just sort of crawl around,” she said. “Somehow these awkward little creatures with grumpy faces; they've persisted for this long.”

When glaciers pulled back from what is now the Laramie valley roughly 10,000 years ago, they left behind a different species, the Canadian toad. It evolved into a new, local variety.

Estes-Zumpf says the toad is a special part of Laramie’s natural history. “It is Wyoming's toad, and we can't just sit back and let it wink out. What’s so encouraging is that so many people around the country are helping us to make sure that this doesn’t happen.”

Pizel and other zookeepers will travel to Wyoming in early August to meet with partners there and look for toads in the wild. In the longer term, she is looking forward to potentially moving her breeding program to a larger room in Como Zoo’s aquatics building.

There, zoo visitors could also get to know the Wyoming toad, through a window.

NewRange Copper Nickel, the company behind a controversial plan to dig an open pit mine for copper, nickel and other metals in northeast Minnesota that was first proposed more than 20 years ago, is back with a redesigned proposal it hopes will pass regulatory and legal muster.

NewRange, formerly known as PolyMet Mining, has submitted the changes to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to kick off a new round of environmental reviews, and the company filed a new application for a wetlands permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“This is not just paperwork,” said Colin Marsh, Director of External Affairs for NewRange, which is owned by a joint venture of the Swiss conglomerate Glencore and the giant Canadian mining firm Teck, which also controls another copper-nickel deposit nearby. “It represents meaningful updates at the NorthMet project.”

The project is located about six miles north of Hoyt Lakes, on the far eastern edge of the Iron Range at the site of an old taconite mine. NewRange seeks to dig copper, nickel and precious metals from the Duluth Complex, considered the largest untapped source of such metals in North America. It’s about 20 miles southwest of the Twin Metals project outside Ely.

Eight years ago, the proposal seemed poised to be Minnesota’s first ever copper-nickel mine, when state and federal agencies approved the key permits that the company needed to move forward. But since then, one of those permits was revoked, and two others are now in limbo, after environmental groups and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed lawsuits in an attempt to stop the mining project.

Boosters of copper-nickel mining believe it could provide a huge jolt to the economy of northeast Minnesota, creating hundreds of high-paying jobs and injecting billions of dollars of investment into a region where iron ore mining has supported the economy for over a century.

But it has yet to be proven that the kind of mining NewRange would do to extract the copper and nickel can be done safely in the state. The metals are found in ore that contains sulfide, which when exposed to air and water can lead to acid mine drainage and run off that can create serious water pollution in groundwater and nearby lakes and streams.

The changes NewRange unveiled this week address some of the aspects of the proposed mining plan that have gotten the most scrutiny, including how the company plans to store the massive amount of waste tailings the mine would generate.

The previous plan called for stacking those tailings on top of four square miles of old waste piles left behind from the former iron ore mine, and storing the tailings behind a giant earthen dam.

Now, NewRange is proposing to instead deposit its tailings in the old, abandoned iron ore mining pits that the company has acquired adjacent to its current site.

The new design also includes what NewRange calls a “closed-loop water management approach,” which the company said would reduce water discharge by 75 percent.

The company is also proposing to replace a 7-mile long rail line with a conveyor system to transport ore from the mine to the processing facility.

With those changes in place, NewRange said it would increase the amount of ore it processes every day, from 32,000 tons to 40,000 tons. That would in turn shorten the expected lifespan of the mine from 20 to 16 years.

“This takes a project, a good project, and updates it, enhances it, and makes it better,” said Marsh. “It’s a historic step in this project.”

But environmental groups that have fought the proposed mine for more than a decade dismissed the changes, which are outlined in a two-page document and press release.

“The risks of this proposal have not changed,” said Joy Anderson, Legal Director for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

Anderson said the mining project would still result in the destruction of about 1,000 acres of wetlands. And she said it would still result in long-term water pollution that would require water treatment at the site for hundreds of years after the mine closed.

Anderson is pleased NewRange ditched its original plan for storing waste tailings. But she said the company didn’t change course “out of the goodness of their hearts. But because groups like ours and others sued and said this does not comply with Minnesota law.”

Environmental groups believe NewRange should start from the beginning with its plan, and redo the entire environmental review process with state regulators. Instead, the company is proposing a shorter, “supplemental” environmental review.

“This is not the time for shortcuts,” said Paula Maccabee, Executive Director of Water Legacy. “This is time for a clean slate, a new process. These are all new owners. This is an all new proposal. Let's require NewRange to do it right, and see what happens in the regulatory process.”

Minnesota DNR officials say they will take 30 days to decide what level of environmental review the project changes require, adding that they will conduct their own analysis of the proposal, rather than a joint state-federal review.

DNR Assistant Commissioner Jess Richards acknowledged that NewRange is proposing significant changes to its project. But he said it doesn’t mean everything about the project has changed.

“What we need to do is make sure that we are thoroughly looking at the potential impacts of the changes and then how they might affect any other previous analysis that we did,” said Richards.

“It's not to imply at all that even if we order a supplemental environmental impact statement rather than say, as folks would argue, ‘starting at square one,’ it doesn't mean that the outcome of any review wouldn't be completely updated and thorough in its analysis.”

That environmental review would then inform subsequent decisions whether or not to issue permits to NewRange. Richards said the project would likely require new or amended permits. But he said the company has not yet submitted any new permit applications.

The federal government estimates about a year and a half long timeline to issue a decision on the wetlands permit. NewRange’s Marsh hopes for a state process that “doesn’t go too much past that.”

In 2023, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revoked the wetlands permit after the Environmental Protection Agency advised that the permit could not guarantee that the mine could meet the water quality standards of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, whose reservation lies downstream of the proposed mine on the St. Louis River.

Marsh said he’s optimistic that the project’s proposed changes will alleviate the concerns of the EPA and environmental critics.

Julie Lucas, Executive Director of the industry group Mining Minnesota, said the changes illustrate how the state’s mine approval process is supposed to work – “allowing science, engineering, and public input to refine a project as new information emerges.”

The federal government is altering the definition of the word “harm” under the Endangered Species Act. Environmental groups are suing to stop the change before it takes effect in September.

Harm previously referred to anything that injures or kills a protected organism, including habitat modification or degradation. Under the new language, habitat is no longer a consideration.

“By removing that as a barrier, you’re opening the door for increased development” that could harm species, St. Cloud science teacher Devon Bowker, known online as Devon the Nature guy, told MPR News host Clay Masters.

In Minnesota, “species like the rusty patched bumblebee — they are very fragmented in terms of their habitat. They have very small pockets of good, valuable habitat for them,” he said.

“Removing these kinds of restrictions, allowing people to just mow through a pollinator patch or to develop a prairie — which, we don’t have much prairie remaining — really is like a stake through the heart of the core protections that could keep these species around.”

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

As temperatures rise, fish susceptible to high temperatures are finding it harder to thrive in lakes, leading to fish deaths across Minnesota.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources received reports of 65 fish kills from July 16 to July 20. “Anglers should be aware that fish are stressed due to warm water temperatures and low dissolved oxygen availability,” the agency said Friday.

Northern pike are especially sensitive to temperatures above 84 degrees, “so anything above that for a prolonged period of time and we start to see issues with them getting stressed out and potentially dying if they can’t get to cooler thermal refuges,” Isaiah Tolo, the DNR’s fish health supervisor, told MPR News.

Listen to the conversation by clicking the player above.

State technology officials say more than 30 Minnesota municipal water systems were targeted in a coordinated cyberattack this week.

In at least one case, a city’s well and treatment plant were temporarily knocked offline Monday. Other cities reported that the attack targeted communications and automated operations within their water system — forcing a move to manual workarounds.

The attack prompted Minnesota IT Services to activate a statewide cybersecurity incident response involving local, state and federal agencies. Authorities did not say whether they know who is responsible for the cyberattack and did not elaborate on a possible motive.

Officials said water in the affected cities remains safe to drink.

“MNIT is working side by side with our partners to share intelligence, support affected communities, and help utilities restore operations safely while strengthening defenses against future attacks,” John Israel, MNIT’s assistant commissioner and the state’s chief information security officer, said in a news release Tuesday.

“This incident demonstrates why Minnesota has invested in strong cybersecurity capabilities and partnerships. Our response worked as intended, enabling agencies at every level of government to rapidly coordinate, contain the incident, and help prevent more serious impacts to critical services,” Israel said.

The city of Braham reported that the attack targeted the computerized operating systems for its well and water treatment plant.

Mayor Nate George told MPR News that a water plant operator noticed a problem Monday morning: The city’s water tower needed to draw in water, but the well wasn’t working.

“There was power — but there was no controls, you know, telling the water where to go,” he said.

The city alerted Braham residents to limit water use, to keep the water in the tower from running out. An investigation found that a cyberattack caused the outage.

“They were able to hack into the control system of the of the well and just turn the well off, basically,” George said.

Within an hour and a half, city staff got the system back up and running. The city said the attack “did not alter or cause any issue to the physical water plant or water quality or safety.”

The cities of Maple Plain, Plymouth and South St. Paul reported issues with automated controls and communications for their water systems.

“The issue is limited to equipment connected via cellular communications within the system, and crews have continued operating as normal through manual procedures,” the city of Plymouth reported Monday evening.

Michael Thompson is the public works director in Plymouth. He said Tuesday that the city has extra staff monitoring the water system while automated operations are offline.

“We plan for these types of events, so we just had to physically go out to lift stations or the water towers, just to ensure they were functioning and running properly,” he said.

State officials did not say which other cities were targeted in the cyberattack.

Other local governments around the state have been targeted by cyberattacks in recent years, including the city of St. Paul in 2025 and Winona County earlier this year. Some school districts have also been affected.

For decades, central Minnesota’s Sherburne County Generating Station, known as Sherco, burned thousands of tons of coal every day to generate electricity.

The plant’s owner, Xcel Energy, is winding down operations in the next few years. Xcel is building a massive solar energy facility at the Sherco site near Becker and Clear Lake to replace some of the electricity produced by coal.

With the completion of its third phase, the project is now one of the largest solar facilities in the U.S. Xcel has plans to make it even bigger.

“We’re obviously the largest in the state of Minnesota, and one of the largest in the Midwest for sure,” senior operations manager of Sherco Solar Luke Molus said.

As a teenager, Molus spent summers picking strawberries and sorting potatoes on this land. Now he oversees nearly 1.7 million solar panels covering the same fields.

“We’re farming the sun,” he said.

Xcel shut down the first coal-fired unit at Sherco three years ago. A second unit is scheduled to close at the end of this year, and the final unit will retire in 2030.

The third phase of Sherco Solar began delivering electricity to the grid at the end of June. Combined, the three phases produce 710 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 150,000 homes.

“It’s really helping to elevate Minnesota as a leader when it comes to the clean energy transition,” said Gregg Mast, executive director of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, an industry-led nonprofit.

Mast said Sherco is one of a number of renewable energy projects that will help utilities meet the state’s law requiring carbon-free electricity by 2040.

“That’s really exciting for Minnesotans to see what this energy innovation and this transition can look like in real time,” Mast said.

But tariffs and shifting federal policy have created challenges for the solar industry. Levies imposed by the Trump administration on imported solar panels, batteries and other components have driven up construction costs. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, phased out federal tax credits for utility-scale solar projects.

Will Mulhern, director of the electricity program at the nonprofit advocacy group Fresh Energy, said he doesn’t think those challenges will deter developers from building renewable energy projects.

“I think we continue to see that solar and wind and storage are extremely competitive technologies with traditional fossil fuels because they don’t have fuel costs, and capital costs are really coming down,” Mulhern said.

Central Minnesota might not seem like an ideal place for solar power, but Molus said in the summer, production at Sherco Solar rivals sunny states like Texas and New Mexico.

“We’re right there with them in the summer,” he said. “Obviously, we get a little bit less hours of sunlight in the winter, but we do see pretty good production in those winter months.”

Solar panels actually perform more efficiently in cooler temperatures, Molus said. And when snow covers the ground, it reflects light on the back of the panel, increasing production.

In the next month or two, Xcel is expected to file plans with state regulators to add a fourth phase of solar at Sherco, with an additional 200-megawatt array in Clear Lake Township. If approved, construction would likely start by the end of next year, Molus said.

The utility also has plans for two battery storage systems near the coal plant. Xcel says the batteries will use Sherco’s existing connections to the power grid, allowing it to store energy produced across the Upper Midwest and release it during periods of high demand for electricity.

Batteries help extend the period of time that utilities can access wind and solar energy, Mulhern said.

“So as we try to decarbonize, we’re able to bring more and more renewables onto the grid and use them at the times when we really need them — even if those resources aren’t actively generating,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has ordered coal plants in other states that were scheduled for retirement to keep operating.

If such an order is issued for Sherco, Xcel will follow it, Molus said, but it won’t derail the company’s long-term plans for Sherco.

“It won’t change anything the way that Xcel’s progress and vision is going towards the future,” he said.

Officials in an east-central Minnesota city say a cyberattack temporarily knocked its municipal water system offline on Monday — and several other communities around the state also were targeted.

The city of Braham initially reported at about 9:30 a.m. Monday its water treatment plant was offline “for an unknown reason,” and that crews were troubleshooting the problem.

In an update a few hours later, the city said the outage “was a result of a malicious cyberattack of computerized operating systems by unknown actors.”

“This attack did not alter or cause any issue to the physical water plant or water quality or safety. Rather, the attackers shut down the operating controls, which shut down the well and water treatment plant,” the city reported.

City officials also said they were told “at least four other communities” were subject to the same type of cyberattack.

The City of Braham statement did not identify those other communities, but it said the state of Minnesota was providing assistance “to mediate any vulnerabilities, as well as investigating the source” of the attack.

Later Monday, the cities of South St. Paul, Plymouth and Maple Plain said their water systems also had been targeted.

“While the incident affected certain automated controls, established contingency procedures were immediately implemented, allowing Public Works staff to maintain normal water and wastewater operations,” the city of South St. Paul reported. “Drinking water remains safe, water and wastewater services remain fully operational, and no action is required from residents.”

South St. Paul officials said they were working with state and federal agencies in response to the incident.

“Staff continue to monitor the system and are taking the necessary steps to restore normal automated operations while maintaining reliable service,” the city said in its news release.

In Plymouth, the city said that a cyberattack is suspected in problems with communications at two water towers and several lift stations.

“Water levels and water quality are unaffected — the water is safe and there is no need for the public to adjust consumption,” Plymouth city officials reported Monday evening. “The issue is limited to equipment connected via cellular communications within the system, and crews have continued operating as normal through manual procedures.”

Maple Plain city officials reported a “a cybersecurity incident involving technology used to support portions of the city’s water utility system.”

“While the incident affected certain automated control functions, established contingency procedures were immediately implemented. As a result, Public Works staff have been able to maintain normal water and wastewater operations without interruption,” the city reported.

In Braham, city officials had initially asked residents to limit water use, because of a limited supply in the city’s water tower. But later in the day, they said the system was back online and residents could return to normal water use.

The city said the municipal water was being “filtered and treated as expected.”

Other local governments around the state have been targeted by cyberattacks in recent years, including the city of St. Paul in 2025 and Winona County earlier this year. Some school districts have also been affected.

Individuals and groups in Minnesota can now donate unused, unexpired veterinary drugs to benefit animals in need after a new law in effect earlier in July.

The program will reduce medical costs by reissuing donated medications for free to pet owners and animals in need. That can include individuals caring for animals or shelters, pounds and organizations such as the Animal Humane Society, according to Pamela Johnson, the executive director for the Minnesota Board of Veterinary Medicine.

Johnson said it will also reduce veterinary drug waste since medication would have otherwise been discarded.

Now, pet owners and animal organizations will “have access to donated, unused, unexpired, unadulterated veterinary medications,” Johnson said.

Minnesota is one of the first states to adopt such a program, following Rhode Island, Nevada and Colorado.

“This new law creates an important opportunity to help address one of the most important challenges many pet parents face: cost of medications,” said Graham Brayshaw, chief medical officer for the Animal Humane Society.

Johnson and Brayshaw said, for safety reasons, the program will only accept medications in pill form as it is too difficult to detect tampering or measure stability of capsule and liquid medications.

“It's up to the veterinarian who's dispensing or prescribing the medication to ensure all those safety parameters are met,” Johnson said,

Brayshaw said the greatest need is for preventive medications for issues like heartworm, flea and tickborne diseases as well as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for pain relief.

People can donate medications right away, but Brayshaw said to check with veterinarians first to ensure they have a system in place to accept, store and reissue medications. The Animal Humane Society is still developing a process.

“We want to make sure that they are ready to receive these medications and redistribute them back out safely to the community,” Brayshaw said.

Nationwide data reports about one-third of people who have pets cannot afford regular vet care, Brayshaw said. That includes about 400,000 dogs and cats in the Twin Cities.

The new law “is not a fix, but this is a good step in the right direction for getting care for all of them,” Brayshaw said.

The veterinary drug donation law was borne out of a recent overhaul of Minnesota’s Veterinary Practice Act, the regulatory framework for the practice of veterinary medicine and technology. Johnson said it was the first update to the Veterinary Practice Act in 30 years.

For the canoeists and campers who share a deep affinity for the rocky, pine-studded forests and lakes of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, there is a sense of shared grief over the massive wildfires that continue to burn across the region.

Not only have the fires temporarily closed the wilderness area and slowed business to a trickle for outfitters and other tourism-related businesses in the region, they’ve also burned more than 100 square miles of forest, including huge chunks of the wilderness area, near popular, iconic border lakes including Lac LaCroix, Crooked and Knife.

But while fire is destructive in the short-term, in the long-term it's regenerative. Wildfire breathes new life into the boreal forests of northern Minnesota.

Stephanie Pearson is one of the many people grappling with those seeming contradictions. The Duluth writer has paddled in the Boundary Waters for almost her entire life. For her and others, it's a place of solitude and simplicity. Pearson was forced to evacuate from the wilderness last week when it was closed due to the fires.

She knows from past wildfires that changes to the landscape can feel shocking. Many towering red and white pine trees, hundreds of years old, will likely be gone.

"That's what's really psychologically difficult to wrap your head around because I know that in my lifetime these places are not going to grow back," Pearson said.

One hundred fifty thousand people visit the Boundary Waters every year. People love the wilderness, and they want to pass that love on to their children and grandchildren, Pearson said. “And it's a lot harder to love a place that feels alien and scarred.”

While the fire has burned large swaths of the wilderness, it doesn’t burn everything in its path, according to Nick Petrack, fire staff officer for the Superior and Chippewa National Forests. It burns in a patchwork or mosaic pattern. Some of it is low-intensity fire that burns along the forest floor.

"To the average person, you might not even know there was a surface fire coming through it,” Petrack said.

But he acknowledges other parts of the forest will look like a blackened moonscape, in areas where the fire burned hot and fast early last week, torching the tops of trees. What’s left behind will look like “basically black matchsticks,” Petrack said.

But that’s a natural process, forest experts stress. Those areas will grow back.

Northern Minnesota's boreal forest is part of what's known as a fire-dependent ecosystem. The forests here evolved with periodic wildfires. And they need fire to rejuvenate and stay healthy.

In a patch of forest next to the Dorothy Molter museum in Ely, 80 year old red pines soar overhead. The forest floor is lush and green.

Fire officials lit a prescribed fire there two years ago to clear out underbrush and provide other ecological benefits. The only sign of it now is some black charring at the base of the red pine trunks.

But red pines have evolved with wildfire, explains Kyle Gill, director of operations and forest stewardship at the University of Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center, which also manages an experimental forest outside Ely called the Hubachek Wilderness Research Center.

"They have thick bark in order to try and protect themselves from the high heat of fire,” Gill said as he walked through the forest.

They also shed their lower branches as they age, to prevent fires from climbing into their crowns.

He pointed out other “fire-loving” species that have sprouted on the floor of the forest, including bush honeysuckle and large leaf aster. Blueberries often grow thick a few years after a fire burns, which attract moose and other wildlife. Jack pines need heat from fires to open their cones to reproduce.

Gill describes fire as a “community member” in a forest that’s not there all the time, but plays a critical role in keeping forests healthy.

“Whenever somebody says we need the rain, my immediate response is, and the forests need the fire,” he said.

Huge trees will die in the fire, Gill acknowledged.

“But that mortality is important because that then allows the next generation to have an opportunity to have the growing space that they need to get established and start thriving,” he continued.

Still, while the earth deals in centuries and even millenia, humans operate on much shorter time horizons.

Jason Zabokrtsky, who owns Ely Outfitting Company, remembers paddling through some of his favorite parts of the Boundary Waters shortly after the Ham Lake and Cavity Lake Fires burned near the end of the Gunflint Trail about 20 years ago.

"It was a little difficult for me to go back and do some of those routes because it had changed so much, and I had such memories,” Zabokrtsky said. “You know, all the big trees. And when I went back, it looked very different."

Now that he's older, Zabokrtsky tries to remind himself that change is the one constant.

"And the wilderness is always changing, and this is part of that."

The forest has grown back quickly in areas burned by recent fires in the Boundary Waters, including the Pagami Creek Fire that burned more than 90,000 acres in the wilderness in 2011.

However there are concerns that the nature of wildfires in northern Minnesota have also changed. “Since 2021, we have had a lot more large fires,” said Petrack.

The extreme conditions that drove the wildfires up to five miles in a single day last week — 100 degree temperatures, incredibly low humidity, gusty winds — “That's weather you get in Tucson, Ariz. That's not something the boreal forest is really used to,” said Petrack.

There’s also more fuel built up in the forest from years of wildfire suppression. And some scientists believe climate change could alter the forest that grows back following wildfire — that the Boundary Waters could someday be covered by grasslands rather than forest.

But Petrack encourages people to take a holistic view of the wildfires that officials say will likely burn in the Boundary Waters until the snow flies.

“The boreal forest needs to burn,” Petrack said. “This is a natural process, and it will restore itself the way it wants to.”

Residents filled a gymnasium at the Emily City Hall Tuesday night to hear more about a potential underground mine in their community.

The small city surrounded by lakes in northern Crow Wing County, northeast of Brainerd, sits on what's been described as the largest deposit of manganese in North America.

The mineral is an important component of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, buses and power tools. But the prospect of an underground mine less than 2 miles from downtown Emily has many local residents worried.

At the town hall meeting, they peppered representatives of North Star Manganese and parent company Electric Metals with questions about the mine’s potential impacts on their quiet lake-dotted community of lakes and cabins.

“The problem from our side is I actually wish we had better answers at this point,” said North Star founder Rick Sandri. “But we need to do a lot more studies to be able to do that.”

The company still has a lot of work to do before even deciding whether to apply for a mining permit, Sandri said. First, it has to collect reams of baseline environmental data and complete feasibility studies before it develops a mining plan to submit to state regulators.

The company believes there’s enough material at the Emily site to mine about 1,000 tons a day for more than 20 years. The manganese ore would be transported to a plant outside of Minnesota to be processed into battery chemicals, Sandri said.

The company has already spent about $10 million to $12 million exploring the site, Sandri said. A preliminary economic assessment the company released last August indicated that the project is worth continuing.

“It's not a decision to proceed toward an actual mining project,” Sandri said. “It basically tells us, ‘Yes, break out your wallets, keep spending, keep looking at what you're doing and advance your knowledge base.’”

Long history

The Emily deposit is on the northern end of the Cuyuna Range, which was mined for iron ore until the early 1980s.

U.S. Steel developed plans to dig an open pit to mine the iron ore and manganese in and around Emily in the 1950s but declined to pursue it.

Crow Wing Power, a Brainerd-based electric cooperative, purchased some of the land and mineral rights in the manganese deposit in 2008. A subsidiary spent more than $20 million on a failed technique to shoot water under high pressure into the earth to break up the manganese and then pump it to the surface.

North Star Manganese has been exploring the site since 2020, drilling holes hundreds of feet below the surface and mapping the mineral deposit.

The company would use a more traditional method of blasting the underground rock with explosives, Sandri said.

If the company does apply for a mining permit, it would take years to go through the environmental review and permitting process, said Joe Henderson, director of the lands and minerals division of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

‘Promises were made’

Many residents at Tuesday’s town hall expressed concerns about the potential impact on water, air and traffic, as well as their community’s quiet, scenic nature and economy centered on recreation and tourism.

"No matter how they package it, I would not be for it,” said Mark Rossi, who lives on nearby Ruth Lake. “It's too close. I mean, we're a tourist destination, and it would change the whole fabric of what we have up here."

One of local residents’ concerns is whether mining could increase the levels of manganese in drinking water, where it occurs naturally. Manganese is a potential neurotoxin, and elevated levels can cause serious health impacts, especially in children.

Gary Hanson, a longtime Emily City Council member, said Crow Wing Power didn’t fulfill past pledges it made to test residents’ wells for manganese.

“A lot of promises were made,” Hanson said. “None materialized.”

Several residents said they appreciated the company representatives’ effort to attend the meeting and answer their questions, but wished for more detailed information.

Sandri said he understands people’s questions and skepticism, which he said are common whenever a new mine is proposed. He said the company wants to be transparent and publicly share the information it collects while studying the site.

Hoping to help Minnesota communities deal with the effects of the emerald ash borer, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is offering $1.7 million in grants focused on removing, treating or replacing infested trees and rebuilding a community’s tree canopy.

MPR News host Clay Masters spoke with Rachael Dvoracek, a community forestry project specialist for the Minnesota DNR, about the grants and who is eligible to apply.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

An iron foundry in St. Paul appeared in court Tuesday in an effort to avoid losing its air emission permit. It’s another episode in a yearslong saga between the foundry and state regulators.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said in court the Northern Iron foundry has a "substantial history of noncompliance" with the state's air pollution laws and the agency's orders, which prompted the agency decision last year to begin the process of revoking its license.

“That core requirement of trust between the regulator and the regulated party, when that no longer exists, the facility just simply cannot, under the law, continue operating,” said Assistant Attorney General Ryan Petty.

Northern Iron argued that the MPCA’s concerns do not justify revoking its current license because they only pertain to a pending permit application. Northern Iron's attorney, Brian Bell, said the state is overreaching.

“If Northern Iron's permit is withdrawn, Northern Iron has to shut down,” he said. “That means that at least 80 individuals in east St. Paul will lose their jobs.”

Also in attendance were dozens of spectators, who eventually had to pull in additional chairs and sit on the floor to fit in the packed hearing room. Most were activists who wanted to see Northern Iron’s permit taken away.

Many live nearby and are concerned about the health impacts of the foundry’s emissions.

"For years, our community has been dealing with this soot, noise, lead exposure and the uncertainty of not knowing what years of exposure may mean for the health of our homes,” said Sarah Degner Riveros.

At a press conference after the hearing, community organizers said stripping Northern Iron’s permit will send a message.

“As MPCA is taking this incredible step, it means that other polluters around the Twin Cities will see that they can no longer get away with polluting our communities,” said Tracy Molm, a member of the Climate Justice Committee, a Minneapolis-based organization.

Judge Megan McKenzie will issue a ruling at a later date. The foundry is operating in the meantime.

A St. Paul iron foundry will appear in court Tuesday as state regulators continue a yearslong legal battle to revoke its operating permit over pollution concerns.

Regulators with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency announced last year they were taking the rare step to revoke the Northern Iron’s permit.

That decision stemmed from a 2023 review in which regulators determined the foundry in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood violated its permit by removing pieces of pollution control equipment without informing the state. Regulators fined the foundry and said it could have led to excess air pollution.

The parties are still in conflict over whether the foundry is emitting excessive pollution. The agency says modeling based on Northern Iron’s reports indicates the foundry is emitting lead and other particulate matter at higher levels than its permit allows. But the foundry has argued actual air quality readings from monitors near the foundry have not shown excess pollution.

Minnesota’s administrative court system is hearing the case over whether or not to revoke the permit.

Community organizers have pushed for a shutdown of the foundry, too. Several say they plan to be at Tuesday’s hearing.

“Northern Iron continues to pollute the residential neighborhood in which it resides, evading accountability, scorning transparency and flouting regulations,” local advocate Kalani Matus said in a statement. “Meanwhile, lead soot accumulates inside neighbors’ houses and bodies.”

Local residents filed a class-action lawsuit against the foundry for polluting the neighborhood. In the lawsuit, neighbors near the foundry said they find black dust inside their homes and fear for their health.

In another case currently moving through district court, Northern Iron sued the state after regulators attempted to set limits to the foundry’s operating hours. That case is on hold while the foundry and state attempt to settle the the foundry’s permit.

The foundry is still operating while the many legal disputes move through the courts.

Most of the recent attention on the potential for copper and nickel mining in Minnesota has focused on the Boundary Waters region, where the Trump administration in April ended a mining ban south of the wilderness area, breathing new life into the proposed Twin Metals mine outside Ely.

But there’s another proposed mine about 50 miles west of Duluth that's much further along in the process to try to win state approval.

For the past three years, Talon Metals has refined its plan to open an underground nickel mine in the swampy forest just north of the tiny town of Tamarack, responding to more than 1,600 comments as part of the state Department of Natural Resource’s environmental review scoping process.

Talon’s project has flown a bit under the radar compared to more high-profile fights over the proposed Twin Metals mine and the NewRange Copper Nickel project — formerly known as PolyMet — that has been stalled by lawsuits and pulled permits.

But it faces the same question that has dogged those other proposals: Can mining for copper, nickel and other precious metals, which has never been done before in Minnesota and carries more severe pollution risks than iron ore mining, be done safely in a water-rich environment?

“That is always the concern with people,” said Tamarack Mayor John Cyrus. “If the groundwater gets contaminated, then nobody can live here.”

The next step in trying to answer that question begins Tuesday, when the Minnesota DNR is expected to release documents identifying some of the potentially significant impacts of the mine, as well as what needs additional study or analysis and what new data and studies still need to be collected and conducted.

It’s also the first time the general public will be able to file comments and concerns with the state about the proposal as part of the mine’s environmental review process.

“That's part of what makes this really significant,” said Joy Anderson, legal director for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “This has been going on in the background. Probably a lot of people have forgotten about it. But now is the time when the public can express their thoughts about this.”

Promise and risk

Exploration for valuable minerals hidden under the swamps of Aitkin County started more than a half century ago, when the Minnesota Geological Survey used a low-flying plane to conduct aeromagnetic surveys.

The Kennecott company, a subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto, began drilling there in 2002. Six years and 42 holes later, geologists first made the discovery of nickel that Talon now hopes to mine. Like the Duluth Complex farther north where Twin Metals and NewRange Copper Nickel hope to mine, it’s part of the Midcontinent Rift, which formed 1.1 billion years ago when North America split apart, sending lava rich with metals up into the earth’s crust.

Talon, a small Canadian firm, bought into the project over a decade ago and now owns 51 percent of it. Last year, Talon bought the Eagle Mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which opened a decade ago and is the nation’s only operating nickel mine.

Between the two operations, Talon employs about 500 people, including 80 in Tamarack — more than the town’s entire population of 62. The company says it’s already invested $186 million into developing the project.

Talon officials say they have worked from the beginning to engage with the public and respond to community feedback. After hearing concerns raised at community meetings over mine waste tailings, the company decided to ship the ore from the mine site on train cars to process elsewhere.

More recently, Talon tweaked the design of the proposed mine’s footprint, shrinking it and consolidating all the operations in one building about the size of a big box store.

Trucks would descend into the 2,000-foot-deep underground mine via a winding tunnel similar to a parking ramp. But when they return to the surface, the ore would stay indoors before it’s transferred to rail cars.

"So that the ore is not exposed to the environment at surface,” explained Talon spokesperson Jessica Johnson. “It's handled inside of a controlled environment, so you can really engineer and manage for dust. You no longer have to worry about rain or snow events contacting your operation."

It’s an example of the company thinking outside the box, Johnson said, “by designing a mine inside the box.”

It’s also an attempt to address one of the biggest environmental concerns with mining for copper and nickel: When the ore interacts with air and water, it can create acid mine drainage, which can leach sulfate and heavy metals into surrounding waterways.

An interconnected spider web of aquifers and surface water surrounding the mine site flows toward Big Sandy Lake and the Mississippi River about eight miles away, an area that the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe considers “the crown jewel of wild rice habitat in the world,” said the Band’s Natural Resources Director Kelly Applegate.

Ojibwe people from around the upper Midwest come to the area to rice, along with non-tribal members, he added. It’s more than a food, Applegate explains. It’s a medicine. And it’s a cultural linchpin, the reason Ojibwe people settled where they did, when they found “the food that grows upon the water.”

“If there were to be a catastrophe, a leak, it can potentially kill off the manoomin [wild rice] beds, and that would not be acceptable to us as a people,” Applegate said.

Mille Lacs Band Chief Executive Virgil Wind said he appreciates the changes Talon has already made to its plan. But he said those changes don’t completely eliminate the risks. "I just don't see how in such a water-rich environment that [mining] can be done safely,” Wind said.

Talon is collecting baseline environmental data to better understand how water flows in the area. Johnson says that will then be incorporated into an environmental impact statement and into the company's plan to manage the pollution risks that come with underground mining.

Tamarack Mayor John Cyrus said he trusts the company.

“I believe what they're saying when they say they can mine it without polluting. And Minnesota has a great history for rules and regulations for mining,” said Cyrus.

Supporters of the proposed mine say Talon has already provided an economic jolt to one of the poorest regions in the state. And if the mine opens, the company plans to add another roughly 150 jobs, Johnson said, in addition to the hundreds of construction jobs needed to build the mine.

“I’d like to see it happen in my lifetime,” said James Onstad, a supervisor for nearby Haugen Township who said he’s watched too many people move away from the area since he was a kid. “Because otherwise, this community’s dead.”

A larger mine?

Talon has attracted some high-profile backers in its bid to open what would be only the second nickel mine in the country. It struck a deal with Tesla four years ago to provide the electric vehicle manufacturer with nickel for its car batteries.

The federal government has also invested in the company. The Department of Energy has pledged about $115 million to Talon to build a minerals processing facility in North Dakota, although the company now says it is also considering shipping its ore to a processing facility in Michigan it acquired when the company purchased the Eagle Mine.

The Defense Department has also invested about $20 million for continued exploration, in Michigan and at Talon’s Tamarack site.

During a visit to the mine site last week, crews operated a drilling rig that bored below the main deposit where Talon is planning its initial mine. Geologists recently discovered an area of rich mineralization there with grades 10 times higher than the main deposit.

“There aren’t really many examples globally of anything like this,” said Brian Goldner, chief exploration officer for Talon.

Talon’s plan calls for mining for seven to 10 years. But the additional exploration could lead to an extended mine life. Talon has cited the potential for a “mining district” over about an 11-mile area in earlier investor reports.

“One of the bigger concerns that we have is that this is just the beginning,” said the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy’s Joy Anderson. “It’s really important to not just look at this mine that they are proposing, but to know that this is setting a blueprint for everything that they want to do in a very large area right around this mine.”

The environmental review process for large and controversial mining projects like this one can stretch for years. Johnson hopes the changes Talon is making at the front end will shorten that process. The company's ambitious timeline aims to start construction of the mine in 2029.

No swiping on dating apps. No awkward dinners or drinks at a bar. Just gloves, loppers and a lot of buckthorn.

That’s the idea behind a new Minneapolis group bringing singles together to restore a Minneapolis park. More than 50 people met Sunday as part of the Buckthorn Removal Singles Club at East River Trail in the Prospect Park neighborhood.

For an hour and a half, they cleared invasive shrubs, piled branches and stopped every so often to introduce themselves. Andrew Johnson drove down from Blaine after spotting the event on Reddit.

“Well, I'm single, ready to mingle, whether that be for a romantic partner or, I guess, making friends around the Cities,” he said. “I don't really like dating apps. I think seeing people in person mingling is more organic.”

Buckthorn is an invasive plant that's spread across much of Minnesota's woods and parks. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, it was brought over from Europe as a popular hedging material.

It grows fast, crowds out native trees and wildflowers and makes it harder for forests to grow back naturally. Removing buckthorn gives native plants and wildlife a better chance to thrive.

Club organizer William Cooke said the idea came to him after noticing how much buckthorn had taken over one of his favorite parks. He posted four flyers in neighborhood coffee shops, which quickly circulated online.

“People are tired with the dating apps and the way things are,” he said. “People are interested in environmentalism, and I think there's just a real culture in Minneapolis right now of trying to do things a little different and trying to find ways that the community can care for itself. And I think people are excited about that.”

Some club attendees came Sunday looking for a date. Others just wanted to meet new people while helping the environment.

For Corinne Buie, who lives in Crystal, the event checked both boxes.

“As a queer person, it's harder to meet people,” she said. “But I figured there's got to be some gays out here trying to help the earth.”

She said reducing invasive species like buckthorn so native plants can grow was part of the appeal.

“It doesn't hurt that buckthorn is just such a fun word too. Singles Buckthorn Removal Club, come on,” Buie said.

Emily Szeliga of northeast Minneapolis said it was a wholesome experience with the goal of not simply finding a romantic connection, but protecting the environment from buckthorn.

“It was really, really fun,” Szeliga said. “I met some cool new people. I reunited with an old friend from high school, and we got a ton of buckthorn.”

She said the event also offered something she hasn’t always found on dating apps: the ability to focus on the moment without expectations.

“In the past when I’ve tried dating apps, I’ve gone into it feeling like, OK, I’m on a date, so I should feel particular things about this person,” Szeliga said. “This is a space where there’s no expectations for how this date is supposed to go and what comes next.”

By the end of the morning, volunteers had cleared large piles of buckthorn from the park. Some exchanged phone numbers. Others grabbed coffee afterward.

Cooke said the club will continue meeting on Sundays until the weather gets too cold.

For now, the group is giving people a new way to meet others one invasive shrub at a time.

The Lake Charlotte Solar project would generate 150 megawatts of solar electricity and it would store 600 megawatt hours of power in a batter energy storage system in Rutland Township in Martin County. It would be built by Geronimo Power on more than 1,000 acres of land in the township.

Supporters of the project say it will help Minnesota meet the state’s clean energy mandate that will require 100 percent of the state’s electricity to be generated by carbon free sources by 2040.

“I look forward to the project being constructed in a way that will help Minnesotans realize the benefits of having more clean energy on our grid overall, and will maximize benefits to Minnesota workers to bring the economic benefits of the project to Minnesotans,” said Katie Sieban, chair of the PUC during Thursday’s meeting.

Construction is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2027, while operations aren’t anticipated to start up until the fourth quarter of 2029, according to project documents, and the total capital cost for the entire project is estimated to range between $360 million to $435 million.

The project’s planning documents also indicate that the site will generate an estimated $358,000 in tax revenue per year over 30 years, with about $287,000 a year going to Martin County and $71,700 per year will be paid to Rutland Township. Lease and purchase payments to landowners would offset losses from removing land from agricultural use.

Some residents who live near the site of the Lake Charlotte Solar project voiced opposition to the green energy power plant and battery storage facility being built near their homes in the public comment portion of the PUC meeting. They and some other county residents have shared concerns about the project’s potential impacts to farmland, the local agricultural economy, the environment and wildlife. They’ve also raised concerns that the solar power and battery facility may reduce property values and increase fire risks.

“I don’t see this project providing any type of business opportunity for our community,” wrote Kathy Meixell, a resident of Martin County in public comments submitted to the PUC. “It is a sad day for Martin County, Minnesota and [the United States] to see that it is more important to fund our pockets than provide a safe, beautiful land free of ‘clutter’ that has the possibility to create more problems than solutions.”

But others spoke out and submitted comments in support of the project, including labor unions such as LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, and IBEW Local 343, which submitted a joint comment.

“Lake Charlotte Solar has potential to deliver significant energy and socioeconomic benefits, including ongoing employment and career opportunities for IBEW and LIUNA members that have helped to build recent wind projects in Southwest Minnesota,” the comment reads. “We look forward to working with Geronimo to build the project and realize those benefits.”

A new state report found flaws in a program that rewards Minnesota farmers who protect water quality.

Launched more than a decade ago, the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program offers financial assistance to producers who change their farming practices to prevent water pollution.

They might choose to till less often, which slows erosion and reduces fertilizer runoff into local waterways. Or they might plant cover crops and vegetative buffers to slow runoff.

The report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor released Friday found the Minnesota Department of Agriculture certified some farmers into the program who didn’t meet all the standards but had agreed to do so in the future.

However, sometimes those farmers approved on “contingencies” still didn’t comply years later, the report states. It notes, for example, that one farmer received six years of program benefits but never compiled before his certification was suspended.

The report also says the program's effect on water quality is not clear, because the data the department uses to estimate how much pollution it’s saving has limitations. For example, not all producers are required to adopt new farming practices to get certified.

About 1,500 farmers were actively certified in the program last year, according to the report. The total number of certified acres was a little over 1.1 million, which is about 4 percent of Minnesota’s total farmland.

The ag department touts the environmental benefits of the program, including the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment its farmers are keeping out of Minnesota’s waters. Nutrient runoff from fertilizers can cause algal blooms in waterways. And sediment can block sunlight essential for aquatic plants.

In a statement, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture said it’s proud of the program, which was the first of its kind in the nation, and “all it has done to further the state’s commitment to water quality and conservation while advancing responsible and innovative agricultural practices.”

Advocates defend the program

Thom Petersen, Minnesota’s agriculture commissioner, said it’s a good time for a review of the program’s performance and how to improve it. But Petersen took issue with the report’s criticism of certifying farmers who aren’t yet in compliance on contingencies.

“We think contingencies are important to bring producers along as they make those changes, because some of those changes take some time,” he said.

Petersen also disputes that farmers in the program are receiving benefits even though they don’t meet the standards.

“A lot of these people are my neighbors. I know the improvements that they've made to their farms. I've seen the investments that they put in,” he said. “The money they get from the state is a small portion of the overall practice and changes that they're voluntarily making to their farm to help improve water quality.”

The program also has supporters among producers and local officials.

Megan Herbst, a conservation planning manager with the Stearns Conservation District, works with farmers who want to get certified in the program.

Herbt said the program has been effective at promoting conservation practices, especially among farmers who might want to improve their farming practices but aren’t ready to jump in all the way.

"On every acre, what little steps can I make to improve water quality and to improve soil health and keep the soil on my farm?’” Herbst said.

Alex Udermann, owner of Meadowbrook Farm near Sartell, said in an email that the program has been “tremendously beneficial” as his farm adopted soil health principles and transitioned toward regenerative agriculture.

Since becoming certified, Udermann’s farm has adopted a range of conservation practices, including transitioning to no-till farming, planting cover crops and improving nutrient management.

“Every certified farm is taking measurable steps to reduce soil erosion, keep nutrients on the field where they belong and improve how water moves through the soil, instead of running off into ditches, streams, rivers and lakes,” he said.

The U.S. Forest Service is closing public access to a large swath of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness because of multiple wildfires and continued dry conditions.

Campfires are also banned throughout the popular wilderness area, effective Saturday, July 11.

The Forest Service reports that 17 wildfires started this week. Four are burning inside the Boundary Waters, the rest are outside the wilderness boundary. Two of the fires are fully contained. The fires burning in the Boundary Waters are located in the northwest part of the wilderness, between Ely and Crane Lake, north of the Echo Trail and south of Lac LaCroix along the Canadian border.

The Forest Service is closing public access to areas near three of those fires: the Bear Trap, Thumb and Wolfpack fires. As a result, several popular entry points to the wilderness area are temporarily closed, including Angleworm Lake, Little Indian Sioux River North, Moose/Portage River North, Mudro Lake and South Hegman Lake.

Four trails are also closed: the Angleworm, Blandin, Herriman and Sioux Hustler Trails.

The Forest Service said it issued the closure order to protect public health and safety for firefighters and the general public.

The closure area covers about 225,000 acres out of the million-acre wilderness. Forest rangers are paddling through the affected part of the wilderness, evacuating campers from the closure area.

“There’s a lot of fuels out there, the weather’s hot, it’s dry, and the forecast is not looking very great,” said Superior National Forest spokesperson Joy VanDrie.

But VanDrie stressed that more than 75 percent of the wilderness area remains open.

Jason Zabokrtsky, owner of Ely Outfitting Company, said he’s been busy talking to customers who have permits to enter the wilderness in the closed area. He said some have canceled and others have rescheduled or altered their trips.

The closure area includes very popular entry points where permits get snatched up quickly.

But he said the impacts aren’t as severe as in 2021, when the Forest Service closed the entire wilderness area because of wildfire danger.

“This feels very different, but it will depend on the weather and fire activity. My biggest concern is having the available resources to manage these fires appropriately.”

VanDrie said fire crews and wilderness rangers from neighboring forests are aiding efforts.

Several wildfires were reported July 7, the day after a storm system moved across northeast Minnesota, bringing thunder and lightning but little precipitation. Several more fires have sprouted up in the days since.

Many fires are small, around an acre in size or less. But some have grown larger. The Thumb Fire, which started on July 7 from a single tree lightning strike, has grown to 20 acres in size as it burns in a remote section of the BWCA south of Lac LaCroix that is difficult to access.

The Chub Fire, burning southwest of Crane Lake, is 10 acres in size. The Sioux Fire, which started Thursday north of the Echo Trail near the Jeanette Campground, has burned six acres. Firefighters are on the ground working to contain that fire and others that are located in places that are easier to access. Aircraft are dropping water on several of the blazes in the more hard-to-reach areas.

In addition to banning campfires, the Forest Service is prohibiting the use of stoves or grills fueled by charcoal or any type of wood in the Boundary Waters. Campers are allowed to use gas or propane cook stoves.

Forest officials remind people to be extremely careful with any potential source that could ignite a fire, including cigarette smoking, dragging chains, or riding ATVs or other recreational vehicles. They urge campers to keep any campfires outside the wilderness area small, and to make sure they are cold to the touch after they’re put out.

The Forest Service says it will continue to monitor conditions and make daily updates as needed.

Correction (July 11, 2026): An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the company owned by Jason Zabokrtsky.

Officials at Isle Royale National Park are temporarily closing parts of a popular campground — and implementing special measures at two others — because of an “increasingly bold” wolf.

The closure affects individual tent and group campsites at the Three Mile Campground, not far from the Rock Harbor hub on the east side of the Lake Superior island.

“Over the past week, a wolf has been spotted in the campground, sniffing and pawing at tents, dragging backpacks away from tents, and entering a tent,” park officials said in a news release Thursday. “The wolf has become increasingly bold, showing signs of habituation and a growing reliance on human food.”

The closure at the Three Mile Campground is set to run through July 31 and also includes off-trail camping zones in the area. Shelters at the campground will remain open.

“The park has addressed the issue through hazing, improved trash and recycling management, and stricter food storage rules, but wolf interest in human food and trash continues,” park officials said. “This recent focus on tents and backpacks at Three Mile Campground is a serious concern.”

The park plans to step up hazing efforts in the area during daylight hours to try to discourage the wolf from returning — including “loudly shouting, stomping, clapping, sounding airhorns and discharging paintball guns.”

The park will also install noise-producing devices not just at Three Mile, but also at the Rock Harbor and Daisy Farm Campgrounds, “to alert staff and visitors of wolf presence.”

Earlier this week — from Monday through Wednesday — the park temporarily closed another campground, Duncan Narrows, due to “increasing frequency of interactions between humans and wildlife.” The park did not say whether that also involved a wolf.

And last summer, park staff killed a wolf after an “escalating number of concerning incidents reported by park visitors.”

This year the park updated its food storage regulations, requiring all backpackers and paddlers to “store food, trash, and scented items in a food storage locker, or in an approved, animal-resistant, hard-sided container.”

An annual survey of the wolf population on Isle Royale estimated there were 37 wolves on the island this past winter — the highest number since the late 1970s. But the island’s moose population — a major food source for wolves — has dropped sharply.

At an abandoned property in Sibley County, 71 cats were living without water and sleeping on top of rotting furniture and trash. It’s unknown how long they were there but after the Animal Humane Society got a call from a concerned neighbor, they responded to the scene.

They found dangerously high ammonia levels inside the abandoned home, requiring the response team to wear full-face respirators. The cats, dangerously skinny and of varying ages, were ushered into carriers. Many are suffering from respiratory infections and open wounds.

Since the cats were rescued Tuesday, the Animal Humane Society has been helping them settle in before medical evaluations. Dr. Sara Lewis, the vice president of veterinary medicine, said the cats are friendlier than she assumed given their circumstances, but they’re still a bit on the shy side.

Lewis also noted that the increased heat in Minnesota lately did not help.

“This becomes a life-threatening environment for them to be in, and many can pass away in even just a short period of time from lack of either air conditioning, the temperatures and not having food or clean water,” she said.

While the property was not occupied, Lewis said that from previous interventions, the Animal Humane Society knows how overwhelming things can be when animals are breeding quickly. One mother cat can have up to eight or 10 kittens at a time.

If the cats are not neutered or spayed, situations get out of control quickly — which is likely what happened in Sibley County.

Next steps for the cats include getting them spayed and neutered and having behavioral evaluations. If they have severe medical issues, they will also be treated. Lewis said the first round of cats could become adoptable next week, but it depends on their health.

You can find the cats up for adoption after they complete their medical evaluations by following this link. The adoption page is updated every 30 minutes. The Animal Humane Society will also post updates on Facebook and Instagram about their status.