Episode 30 – Protecting the Watershed with Megan Bond

Ikonokast
Ikonokast
Episode 30 - Protecting the Watershed with Megan Bond
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Megan Bond Atty
Guest Megan Bond

Megan Bond has a BS in Public Administration with a Minor in Health Care Adminstration, a J.D. and an M.A. in Public Policy and Leadership from the University of St. Thomas. She began working in water conservation as a teenager in Las Vegas and has found her way into the environmental movement wherever she’s lived, and made environmental policy a major focus of her studies at all levels, even earning the Dean’s Award in Environmental Law in law school. She is an attorney and a solo practitioner at Bond Law Office, in International Falls, MN, concentrating in public interest defense work, including defending 37 water protectors protesting the Line 3 project in 2020 and 2021. She lives on the shores of Rainy Lake near Voyageurs National Park, in the heart of the Rainy River Watershed. Outside of her career, she chairs theDFL Environmental Caucus, chairs the Science and Policy Committee for Voyageurs Conservancy, serves on the Board of Directors of her local Food Shelf, and spends as much time camping in the summers and hiking in the autumns as she can.

 

Canoes at Boundary Waters
Canoes at Boundary Waters

In this interview, Megan talks extensively with Greg Laden about the importance of the watershed to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park as well as the Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario;  but more importantly, the watershed flows out from a contintal “trivide” to Hudson’s Bay, The Atlantic Ocean’s East Coast through the St. Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf Of Mexico through the Mississippi River.

A watershed map of North America.  The trivide that Greg and Megan speak of is where the orange, green and purple colors meet.

We do need to have copper for solenoids in windmills, and it’s a nearly perfect conductor for electrical wires for power transmission.  So, we aren’t saying to not mine copper, but the mines being fought over are not necessary in an environmentally sensitive area.

There is  an additional segment with Mike Haubrich talking to Greg about the EPA suit that forced the Reserve Mining Company to stop dumping taconite tailings into Lake Superior.

Some links of interest:

Statement on the availability of copper in the long run.

Zebra Mussel invasive species on Rainy Lake

Canada’s Worst Mining Disaster is Due to a Dam Being Built in the Wrong Place

Toxic Algal Blooms

Enbridge Line 3 is a Big Jerky Project

Mile Post 7 PDF Statement by the Army Corps of Engineers

The United States V Reserve Mining Company, DBPedia

Hard-fought United States vs. Reserve Mining changed environmentalism