Warming Prompts Interior to Prohibit Mining at Alaska Glacier

The Biden administration is taking the first steps to prohibit mining on newly-exposed land around Alaska’s receding Mendenhall Glacier as climate change quickly melts the ice.

The U.S. Forest Service has filed an application with the Bureau of Land Management to request that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland prohibit mining and other mineral leasing on 4,560 acres of federal land around the melting glacier, according to a Federal Register public inspection notice published Friday.

Prohibiting mining in the area will help protect the water in the glacial lake beneath the Mendenhall Glacier, according to the notice.

The glacier, near Juneau, ...