One of the busiest mining operations in the world is about to be staged around one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world: Lake Superior.

The mining companies promise jobs and economic development, but does the new mining really offer a sustainable way forward for the Lake Superior region? What about the risks that copper and nickel mining pose to the largest of the Great Lakes? Is this the beginning of another boom and bust cycle, or can communities around Lake Superior seize this opportunity to conceive and to create a lasting prosperity?

These are some of the questions I’ve been exploring in my posts on Lake Superior mining. Right now this is a blogging project, but it’s already occasioned an Op Ed and a keynote address, and in time it might develop in some other directions. I consider it an extension of the work I did on 1913 Massacre, my film about the deep scars left by the last round of copper mining in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

I’ve listed my posts on this theme in reverse chronological order. For easy reference, I’ve also dedicated separate pages to my posts on two topics: the Marquette County Road Commission’s lawsuit against the EPA; and the Trump administration’s reversal of protections for the Boundary Waters.

Interior Still Hiding the Role of Political Appointees — Update on the Boundary Waters FOIA Case
Boundary Waters FOIA on Fox 9 “Investigators”
New Boundary Waters FOIA Complaint Filed against US Department of Interior
The Boundary Waters Reversal Makes the Front Page of the New York Times
Bernhardt, Biodiversity, and the Boundary Waters
A Note on the Jorjani Confirmation Hearing
What Is Sonny Perdue Hiding?
David Bernhardt’s Briefings on the Boundary Waters Reversal
A Motion in D.D.C. and some Updates to the Twin Metals Timeline
“America is Not a Company”: Lowenthal Questions Nedd on the Boundary Waters
A New Boundary Waters FOIA Request
Cert Denied in MCRC v. EPA
What’s Up With the Kalorama Business License?
A Standing Offer to Steve Kornacki
The Architect of the Boundary Waters Reversal
A New Set of Boundary Waters Documents
A Meeting in Santiago about Mining in Minnesota
The Supreme Court Is Going to Do What, Exactly? Another Update on MCRC v. EPA
Sonny Perdue “Broke His Word” on the Boundary Waters 
A Second Boundary Waters Reversal, and Its Connection to the First
Another Look at the Twin Metals Timeline
Demagoguery in Duluth
McCollum Questions Zinke on the Boundary Waters Reversal
What Scott Pruitt’s Troubles Tell Us About Corruption In Kalorama
Twin Metals at Interior — A Timeline
From Caval to Kalorama
A Quick Update on MCRC v. EPA at the Sixth Circuit
A Comment on the Aquila Back Forty Wetland Permit
Another Note on the Boundary Waters Reversal
Is Corruption At Interior Putting the Boundary Waters At Risk?
MCRC v. EPA at the Sixth Circuit
Mozambique, Michigan, and the SEC Complaint Against Rio Tinto
A Highland Map of Lake Superior Mining
Will Pruitt Retreat From the Yellow Dog Plains?
Three Questions For the Michigan DEQ on the Back Forty Project
The Political Project Continues, Even if the Case is Dismissed
A Postscript on the Political Project of MCRC v. EPA
Save the Wild UP December Gala Keynote Address
Dialogue at the Rock
The Political Project of MCRC v. EPA, 4
The Political Project of MCRC v. EPA, 3
The Political Project of MCRC v. EPA, 2
The Political Project of MCRC v. EPA, 1
Laudato Si’ on Mining
Can Mining Be Saved?
Mark Your Calendars
Social License in a Less Exuberant Climate
The Boom Starts with a Rush
A Response from Maidlow’s Office
A Letter to Karen Maidlow, Michigan DNR
A Liturgy of Loss and Hope
A Postscript on Weird Timing and Pending Collapse
Does Eagle Mine Have Social License to Operate?
Mine? What Mine?
Where Are the Women in Mining?
The Big Drain on the Yellow Dog Plains
Northern Exposure
A World of Chinese Boxes
Eagle, Earnings and Eminent Domain
Why A Lake Superior Mining Indaba Is A Good Idea
A Reply to Dan Blondeau
A Mining Renaissance?
Miner’s Almanac
The Times Correction of Jim Harrison’s “My Upper Peninsula” Falls Short In Three Ways
Steel — and Snow — In The Air
The Mining-Labor Juggernaut, A Day After the Election
Time Out of Mind
Walleye and the End of the Known World
Labor Day, 2013: Will Big Mining Do Better This Time Around?
In Michigan, Mining Makes An Asset of A Community
Seduced and Abandoned in a Commodity Corner
Hazards of the Copper Antimarket
The Hysteria of H.R. 761
Haul Road to China
The CEO and the Social Compact: Conibear Comes to Michigan
The Limits of Corporate Benevolence, from Mongolia to Michigan
Drop the Mic: Rio Tinto Community Forums
Newmont, Nonsense and Good Faith
A Great Commons Narrative for the Great Lakes
“The Lake Is Alive” – A Note on Maps and Language
An Updated Map of Lake Superior Mining
Race You To The Water
Polluting the Future — A Question of Human Rights
Impossible or Indigenous in Peru
Reading Orwell On Mining and the Metabolism of Civilization
Rio Tinto and the Rhetoric of Respect – Notes from the 2013 AGM
The Big Slide at Bingham Canyon
Why the Whining in Virginia Matters in Michigan
What’s Mozambique to Michigan?
All Clear for the Mining Boom in Michigan’s UP, Unclear What That Portends