Kent Boucher (00:00.3) is going on? Well, I don't know, there, there is a strong link. I'm not a doctor, but there is a strong link between sugar, you know, like, or poor eating habits. Let's just leave sugar out of it. Poor eating habits and your cognitive function, you know, and if you do that for years and years and years, by the time you're 70, 80, 90 years old, there's going to be, you know, and not that saying that there's everybody, but I'm just saying, I think that helps. Well, that's probably one of the things that's helped boosting. I recently heard that plaque is associated with like plaque in your teeth is associated with dementia because the bacteria that live on the plaque get into your bloodstream and can cross the blood brain barrier or something like that. like Nicolas Lirio (00:44.536) Do you use Listerine? you use like mouthwash? Do you use mouthwash? I do. I used to have really bad, like I'd like bite my lip and then like my lip would get like all inflamed and stuff when I started using mouthwash. Done. I might as well be a Listerine salesman at this point. both good like even from dentists I've heard a dentist It kills your too much you're good back Yeah. I now there was my aunt's a dentist and she was like, well, twice a week. Like if you use it twice a week, it's good for you. And I don't know. I don't use it twice a week. I use it when I feel like there's a special occasion. want to double make sure my breath doesn't smell. Kent Boucher (01:19.886) thought you just drank so much Grey Goose vodka there though. It just kills everything out of there. Well, you know, the evenings get long when I'm working on stuff. my goodness, wow. we have had pretty crazy couple of weeks. We like all of a sudden went to Minnesota last week. That was long. My wife had the longest weekend of her life work wise and we were at after prom and And then they get short. Kent Boucher (01:48.994) the ice machine workout. Not good. Well, okay. Okay. Pretty good. We found a guy who fixes them and he came in and looked at it yesterday. Uh, by the way, uh, commercial ice machines, best case scenario for 5,000 bucks. If you're getting a new one, you know, they can be, they can be 12, $13,000. Nope. No problem. Depending on your size. So it was legitimately broken. wasn't just like a weird limp mode or something. Nope, totally roasted. But the guy came in and he's like, no, this, actually gives me on a tirade. they, he's like, Nope. the product or the switches that are meant to fail that would have you calling them, that standard. He's like, but I'm one of a few people in Iowa that know how to work like contractors that know how to work on them. So you don't have to call them. And so you're good to go. And, and, he's a great guy. He's a local dude. And, he used to just, he started by working on Arby's commercial equipment. So he's worked on like all this different. So he really, and he's like, yeah, just. Sir, you look like you really like curly fries. You take that you want. And he ended up like, it was like two switches that have to be fixed and one he had and one he's ordering, but it was like a $30 part and it's going to cost us a few hundred bucks. But he said that appliance companies do that. So, know, appliances, they say, these are way crappier than they used to be. He's like, actually they're made pretty hardy. Kent Boucher (02:43.694) This is curly fries. Nicolas Lirio (03:07.01) but what they do is they just make two or three parts that will fail intentionally. But you don't know what those parts are. Yeah. planned obsolescence put it put it like underneath of eight other things and upgrade. And he said that if you look at all, like all the apply, they've somehow done the math that when you go to get one of those parts fixed, it's roughly half, just maybe 40 % of what buying a new one was because they found that much percent. If it was 10%, you, yeah, just fix it. I don't want to buy a new one, but roughly 40 to 50 % gets people to buy a new one more often than not. And he's like, but if you have someone who knows what they're doing, they could fix it instead of for 300, 400 bucks fixing it or buying a new one for seven or $800. they could fix it for a hundred, 150 bucks, you know, in and out in 45 minutes. Kent Boucher (03:52.948) I think what we're discovering right now is somebody needs to launch a new line of appliances called no planned obsolescence appliances. You steal all the business from these companies that are ripping people off. There are some, I think there's, I might put my foot in my mouth here, but I think there's a company called Speed Queen that makes clothes washers and dryers that are basically, I think they're American made and I think they're centered around, we don't have planned obsolescence. And I've always heard this. But those are the gold standard at this point. Speed Queen does sound familiar. Kent Boucher (04:29.698) Sounds like we might need to pick up a new sponsor. Use one. have a secondhand and it's not that Man, I, well, I mean, you look at those old, old washing machines and they were built like you could crawl in them during a nuclear. Yeah, they're built with spare tank parts. Sherman tank or wash basin Riley Rozendaal (04:52.366) Not fun to move, but really good to use. Yeah. Here's what happened. The software companies came out and they moved to subscription. Netflix kind of blew up the subscription model. And then the other big step towards subscription was, what is it called? The dollar shave club or whatever. So they introduced the like subscription box, get something physical. And then there are a bunch of companies like a washing machine companies. They can't do subscript. How would they do subscription? What kind of subscription? So you can just, so they just build it into the machine where the subscription is once every other year you pay. miss out. Kent Boucher (05:25.71) 24 month subscription. When when I bought my house it had a GE fridge in it and it's got a water dispenser But that water dispenser you can sign up for a subscription to get your water filters mailed to you But there's a QR code built into the water filter. So if it's not a you can buy like knockoffs, but it like The old printer ink cartridge deal Yeah, it's it's so weird and it's so wrong because like the aftermarket ones are like 20 bucks and the ones from GE are like 120 bucks for a filter. Yeah Nicolas Lirio (06:02.67) Man, I want to feel better, not worse. So let's do some bad news. Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast. Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio with your favorite co-host, Kent Boucher. Hey, And your favorite co-host to the coast, Riley Rosendahl. The person who invented not invented that phrase, but came up with it for our podcast was Peyton Scandridge. And I need you guys to I don't know what his Instagram handle is. I need you to go on Instagram and Howdy howdy. Nicolas Lirio (06:32.106) message him and tell him he keeps promising to come back for an episode. Scan or PD scan or something. I don't know. But I'm going to to convince him to come back on the pod. Is it Scanman? Kent Boucher (06:44.182) at Doc's the guy, right? Give me a little bit of relief. I need a week off here. These guys are driving me up the wall. My goodness he Peyton is one of the most clever like witty fun people that I have ever met and he works in solar now He works for does big large commercial solar projects And so I always pick his brain about this or that on solar and he has a good insight and I really appreciate He's not like totally biased. He's like look solar is really good for these things and actually not a good option for this Peyton with an A, scan the man. Peyton, scan the man. Go ahead and look up Peyton, say hello to him. All right. Well, now that we doxx that man in public and if you listen to the jingle at the beginning of these coffee time, that's his voice. The old kid, what it was is we used to do the jingle at the end. And if you said, so and so hit us with the jingle. You didn't have to do it real quick to like, it is what the jingle. man. All right. Can you go in first or you want me? Kent Boucher (07:30.209) Here's what Kent Boucher (07:48.83) Yeah, I'll go first. So I should have kept my phone out. So there was an article that was just posted this last week, I believe. I think I saw it last week and sent it to you guys. If I can get it to load here. I did see that. And it was, come on. So it's from KCRG, which is a news, an Iowa based news station. And it's a article by Brooklyn Draisley. And she's reporting on a new study that was posted in a, like a, I guess a more like, how would you say it? Scholarly publication, know, like. maybe. Kent Boucher (08:41.826) Yeah, in a scholarly science journal ESA, which stands for Ecology something something where Iowa State University is looking into this relationship between pollinating insects, probably mostly bees and butterflies, but it's not only them, right? plant diversity in a prairie planting. And this It sounds like on the surface like, man, skip, you know, I already know the flowers need the bees and the bees need the flowers kind of thing, right? But when you start looking at what kind of questions are trying to answer, one of them is super pertinent to what we do here at Hoxie. We, of course, love remnant prairies. We've covered remnant prairies. We still have an incredible remnant prairie episode to launch on the podcast with Keith Horn. We actually rent a remnant prairie That we get some of our seed stock off of but mostly it's just to preserve that remnant from getting turned into to row crop There's our virtue signal We just burned it last week actually. Yeah We So we value like true pristine virgin prairie, you know immensely however, that is just Right now the current number that you see published all the time is about 0.01 % of that original prairie is left in Iowa. If you'd go to the Iowa Prairie Network Winter Conference though, would have heard Dr. Tom Rosberg say that he hypothesizes that there could be more than that in old cow pastures and stuff like that in Southern Iowa, of South Central to Southeastern Iowa if I remember correctly. from his presentation. Point being, tiny, tiny bit of remnant prairie left in Iowa. So most of the prairie we get back is reconstructed prairie. And that's where we at Hoxie specialize. We grow seeds so that people can plant a reconstructed prairie. And what are some of the disadvantages, you two, for reconstructed prairies compared to remnant prairies? Number one. Nicolas Lirio (11:05.358) Whatever sees the big one. fewer species, right? What else? Nicolas Lirio (11:13.462) I mean, everything I can think of is connected to fewer species, right? The form and function that comes from having like Especially over time, right? What happens over time? We talk about this often. Big bluestem it windles down because you don't have not just fewer flora but less fauna to keep an actual cycle Right, and so they're looking at that with this study. We assume, and rightfully so, and they reference this in the article, Brian Wilsey was a professor of ecology at ISU and a PhD graduate. Nathan Soli, I guess you'd say he was a student, who worked with Brian on this study. I believe it's... the professor, Wilsey, mentions later in here that he has some experience with bison. Yeah, it says, Wilsey's worked with bison and seeing how their practice of eating dominant prairie grasses led to an increased abundance of other plants, which led the researcher to think more about diverse prairie landscapes. So he has observed what we've talked about all the time, like, hey, it'd be great if CRP management could include Kent Boucher (12:33.278) grazing allotment for a certain amount of time because that's what that's what we're pushing for right there right is we think that if you could hold those dominant grasses the most durable species in the prairie at bay a little bit then some of the more fragile What do call them high high conservative value? Species in the prairie would be able to hang around longer Maybe even multiply in the prairie a little bit and so that's true that does happen but there's more to it than that. And what their study has shown is they've essentially taken a control group in their experiment, right? Which is that these are the species we just leave alone like we normally do in the prairie, right? We'll let whatever happens to them happen to them. Some of them, they're going to seal them off and they're going to only allow them to be pollinated by the people doing the study. A human is going to take you know, the pollen from one plant and pollinate another plant manually. And then the third option is they're going to have some of the flowers completely sealed off from being pollinated, no access to pollinators and what happens to those species. So those are their three test groups, right? And the way they did that is they used bridle veil material like screen, know, mesh, really, really fine mesh. So that way sunlight, moisture could still get to the plants. You know, they weren't. But it would catch even pollen on the outside. Kent Boucher (14:13.654) Well, I mean, I imagine some wind blown, but no bee is getting in there. No butterflies getting in there. They're just trying to, they're just testing what's the insect role here. And I suppose you could even say some, you know, larger than insects, maybe birds or mammals, bats, things like that. But the main thing is we're cutting it off from an animal role and pollination here, right? And What they found, and the study's been going on since I believe 2020. I'm obviously trying to speed through this a little bit. But they found that these results, okay, so Ecological Society of America is that ecology journal that we were talking about earlier. According to the report published this month in the Ecological Society of American Ecology Journal, plants bagged to keep away pollinators saw a 50 % reduction of viable seeds and a 23 % decline in plant species richness overall. So it goes to show that when we say we're planting pollinators, we're trying to support, when we do that, at least for me, my mentality is, well, the prairie is gonna be fine, but. This is going to be for the bees and the butterflies. We're planting all these forbs because we know it's so important for the survival of these bees and butterflies. But in reality, it's important for the survival of the prairie. These plants are shooting blanks for 50 % of their seeds that... I thought you'd like that. For 50 % of their seeds that they're dropping. I won't go there. And as a result, you're losing that diversity in the prairie. So they're going to seed, but obviously, no, they're not viable. So you can't multiply the population in a useful way. And we know from talking with Justin Meisen that even the seeding rates that are recommended, Iowa, it's 40 seeds per square foot for reconstructed prairie. Illinois, it's 20 seeds per square foot, right? Is Minnesota the same as us? 40? Kent Boucher (16:37.185) I think that's highest in the... Yeah, I've never. Well, if you start getting into other government non CRP stuff that some of them like some damn projects will be like 120. Okay, super. But yeah. So I mean, Justin said he would really like to see 40 doubled to 80, right? And so now imagine if half of those seeds that were going on the ground weren't even viable, know, natural. Right, right. Now that doesn't happen for seed that's sold because we have to have everything seed tested. We know what the percentage of viable seed is, but naturally, you know, you would get the same effect. And so yes, He is 20 and your 20 is 10. Kent Boucher (17:17.72) grasses start to dominate prairies because the lack of big grazers on them, reconstructed prairies especially. But it's also because of our declining pollinator, pollinating insects and mammals and birds that we are seeing prairies become more just straight grass than flowers. at least this study seems to suggest that. And so down the road, and you can read, I think you can read, I don't know, maybe you have to subscribe to it. I looked at it a little bit at the abstract, but there's a lot more information in the original article from the Ecological Society of America. But it said this at the end, which was interesting. Willsey's work. Out in the prairie plots isn't finished either with a professor hoping to further his study into the next generation of plants and which ones will Reproduce the most I want to look at if species composition will shift towards those wind pollinated species so you talked about that earlier Nicholas and self pollinating species and highly clonal species so some some species of flowers are naturally capable of pollinating without the assistance of insects or other animals. That's why you get right. That's why it gives allergies so poor terribly. Kent Boucher (18:51.542) So will the prairies, given enough time, pollinator, pollinating insect populations, birds, mammals, all the things, all the animals involved in that pollinating process, if their populations decline for long enough, will our prairie composition shift to like what you said, ragweed or, I'm trying to think of another one that's super wind-borne pollen. I can't really think of one off the top of my head. I'm sure there are some others though. mean, will those prairies begin to look more like that? Or, you know, it would seem to suggest so. But he said, so that'll take a few more years to see that. It looks like it's occurring already. So just from what he's maybe anecdotally observing or maybe he is gathering data already, I imagine he probably is. Wow. That's fascinating. Yeah, so pollinators, it's not just as simple as, is Kent Boucher (19:48.44) The flowers need the bees, the bees need the flowers. No, no, no, they really, really need each other. And I think we can look at insects in a similar way that we look at if we're managing for turkeys, quail, pheasants, deer, whatever. You could dump as many of those animals into an area if you had the option to do so, but if you don't have the habitat for them to live there successfully and even live there throughout the year successfully. and without the environmental toxins that are present that harm them, you're not going to recover those populations. And so we got to get more habitat for pollinators on the landscape. I've been thinking about this a lot in kind of a roundabout way. And kind of the conclusion I've come to is that obviously, like you said, they walk hand in hand, the pollinators and the flowers, but there's a lot of talk about grazing and grazing has its place. However, if not done correctly, it would be more beneficial to flash fire something at the right time of the year. and then allow pollinators to come in. If I drive around any county, probably in the Midwest, you could probably do the same. You're going to see these continuously grazed fields that might have struggling pollinators in them. Like I found some ironweed in a brome grass pasture that I know has not been planted in the last 20 years. And if that was continuously grazed really aggressively or stuff like that, it might get wiped out. But if it was... burned once or flash grazed, you know, then you're gonna see those impact, but. Kent Boucher (21:32.258) Yeah, I think that's a great point. that's my biggest concern with grazing CRP is just, it's like using a chainsaw, right? If you do it right, you get unbelievable work done. If you aren't careful though, cut your leg off. And so it's, I think it definitely can have its place, but I agree with you Riley. mean, what percentage do you think of great, of cattlemen use hyper intensive paddock grazing in their operation. The number is going up. mean, it's definitely going up. If you look at, like we say, ag influencers, of like Greg Judy and Carbon Cowboys, and they're really getting the word out on, you call it management intensive grazing, strip grazing, rotational grazing. The popularity of it is growing, and the number of people who are either, letting animals out and saying, I'll find them when fall comes and I want to sell them or, or I'll move them between two pastures all year is going down. But that's a generational shift. It's just like any ag practice, you know, it changes, one day at a time. It doesn't, you can't just snap your fingers and okay, now everybody's gonna properly graze. Yeah, proper. Right. Interesting. Yeah, I think that's a good take on it. I would agree with that. I hear more and more of people putting paddocks back into fields and, you know, intentionally managing their livestock. Riley Rozendaal (23:04.046) As depressing as it sounds, I was once told this by a farmer that ag change is one funeral at a time. It's just a generational change. Everybody does things different. Back in the 30s, somebody would do something different than they do now. Yeah. way that we think about Kent Boucher (23:22.766) Yeah, that is a very dark but very true Well, that's probably not statement. That's probably not secluded just to add, you know, the, you know, what's kind of interesting about grazing and fire. I've thought about this a bunch is if you intentionally graze intentionally rotationally gate graze, you won't really have much left to burn. Yeah. but you went on a field visit a while ago where there was a bunch of switchgrass cows didn't love the switchgrass. So they just kind of left in the, and that leaves, What is definitely does include yeah Nicolas Lirio (23:54.656) something to be burned. I wonder if you put less palatable plants out there, not all of it, you know, maybe a 10 or 20 % blend where they're just not excited, whether it's sedges or switch grass or some of those Forbes that they don't like as much like Horry Verveen, if there would be some biomass later to actually be able to burn the field the next spring or something like that. It's all about your timing. You know, if you come in in, you know, late or in July or something like that, and your switchgrass is matured earlier than your big blue stem and your Indian, you know, you're going to have larger residual of that. And it's even gone so far for me is to make me wonder about some of the practices we're using like in, in Timberstand improvement, like burning versus like really aggressive grazing. Cause anecdotally I've really aggressively grazed and I've burned side by side. and the burn did better because that constant stress of tillage and of animal impact can be detrimental. Yeah, yeah, well, especially in a timber where, you know, all those acorns and walnuts that you regen for and in the young tender plants that are supposed to be the next generation of plants they get. Chase Burns is the first one to talk about that on this podcast, actually. He talked about how the farm that he and Jackie purchased, they had no oak regenerate. They had old oak. But he found out from one of the neighbors that, yeah, someone used to run hogs. every year for like 50 years in that timber and yeah and I said okay yeah there's like multiple generation gap here of replenishing the the forest that that got how do you knocked back how Nicolas Lirio (25:34.766) You often I wonder, can you run hogs through an area with, know, cause every other year would still probably cause the folks to get. I think our best answer for that is probably Matt. Matt, yeah. He's the doing it and he does it well. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I got a little thing that I want to throw one more thing there. Please. So I was driving around town this weekend and I just I'm always struck by these huge green spaces that we mow. We've talked about this since day one of the podcast, but I think that's where we can really regain realistically where we can regain habitat for these pollinating species. Yeah, because we got to come up with some solutions where it can't just be well, we got to get more. We got to identify some spots and at what point Do, it, does it go from just being a wishlist thing, like, hey, this is, we would love for you to do this, to you gotta do this, or, you know what I mean? What do you think? Riley Rozendaal (26:38.776) Well, the hard part is that... And farmers would love this because we're talking now about municipalities and we're You wouldn't be applying around or around up or fertilizer on this, green space. I think that it's of high value. I think that the, the thing people don't keep in mind though, is that these things turn over these, these need to be set aside and preserved. know, there is high value in taking some of your land and putting it in CRP. But if you sell it in 20 years and the guy who buys it, takes a five bottom plow and turns it over. You know, it was valuable while it was there, but every year there is churn. You know, if we can get some municipalities, some public input on where this stuff is getting placed, it might have the legs to actually last. I think, I mean, Des Moines doing like a cost share thing. You know, what would be kind of interesting is to have a tax break on any lawns that. so it's like. Kent Boucher (27:45.582) That's kind of where I'm from. Or a higher tax bracket if you don't. know what mean? If anything over a half acre that's mowed, you now, and you see that with like rec ground, right? If somebody buys a hunting property and they don't manage the timber, I don't know if Iowa has that law, but it is that case in Illinois. I would love to say like, Oh, well, it's hype helping nitrates in the water. So if you put it in, you might get a lower water bill or something. But the problem is it wouldn't affect the water enough. You'd get like a penny off of you. It wouldn't make sense. think you could do that with farm farms. Yeah. I you couldn't approach it. Yes, if you had enough acres. But I think in this case, it would just purely be connected to, we need more pollinator habitat. I let's look at Pella, the nearest big town to here. How many acres do you think of just mowed, not counting houses, but just like company owned ground that's just mowed or city owned ground that's just mowed? There's a lot of dozens, maybe a couple hundred, you know, across the whole town that are within the city limits. Yeah. I mean, it's a bunch. Yeah, and think of how that, because there are some nice prairie areas close to town, whether it be CRP or public land or whatever, there are some nice prairie areas that I think you could start creating some corridors linking some of, I just think if you did that in every municipality of similar size in Iowa, I think you would see a needle moving change. Nicolas Lirio (29:14.35) I totally agree. Here's where I think your first roadblock would be and not to poop on. I think that's a great idea. The moment that 12 houses that are by that little prairie get more mice in their house, they're going to go straight to city council. You know what I mean? And, they'll, there will be an incentive to get rid of it, which I think would be, you know, it's just like humans wanting what they want when they want, cause they want it. which I think, you know, we've talked about its own own set of problems. Yeah, I should also add in there, they talked about and news outlets whenever they get a report like this, give us the worst news, right? What's the doomsday thing? But they did mention, it was funny, Riley, I was telling Riley about the article and he came up with his own version of this term. You called it a death loop, right? Because you have less flowers, less pollinators, less pollinators, less flowers, less pollinators. They call it an extinction vortex for both. That's what I it referred to as. Kent Boucher (30:14.402) That affects us both in all the ways that we've said for all these years. And I think one that Bob St. Pierre was the first to say on this podcast was, what is it, one in three or one in four bites of food in America is directly dependent upon pollinators. So, you know, it would hurt us. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that's a problem that we've been talking about. We want to talk about the problem that's been in the news all over the place, the boundary waters, uh, which is probably part of the title of this podcast. And you guys have been wondering what, why we're, why we. Well, we didn't just interview Travis Frank, we talked about it on there. Sure. That'll come out. Well, his, I don't know when ours with his, he's coming out with an episode on ours. look up the flush podcast. It'll be out Thursday. So tomorrow from when you listen to this, at 5 a.m. But, so the breaking news, obviously on the 16th of April of this year, there was a 20 year ban, that was turned over. And so we're not, I don't want to dive too far into this part politically, but it was a big precedent because, the U S Senate, Nicolas Lirio (31:25.516) voted 50 to 49 to completely overturn the 20 year moratorium on mining on 225,000 acres of superior national forest, which is not technically the boundary waters area. It's right next to the boundaries water, but you know, nature and physics do not care about our boundaries that we, you know, that we said, But upstream, Riley Rozendaal (31:47.136) There's a line there. That pollution doesn't move past it. And so this is actually unprecedented that public land order set by an administration. So President Biden in this case would be overturned by the CRA and the CRA is a congressional review act. And basically it's a quick way for the legislation branch of the government to overturn an executive order of some sort. whether we agree with that or not, I definitely, I don't want to dive too far into that, but let's not, what I don't want to do is be like, this is terrible. I think this is a good balance of power that they're able to do it. I think it shows where we're at as a people and where what our Congress cares about that they use that power for this specific thing. You know, I, I, I'm totally against what's going on here. so what's happening, twin metals. You're happy with the system of checks and balances. You're just not happy with the decision of the checks and balances. And I'd be the first to agree that the checks and balances they're not perfect, but I'm just glad that they exist Yeah at all, you know, there's a lot of places don't have it. Yeah, so Twin Metals, Minnesota a lot of people are saying that this is going directly to a Chilean mining company. It's a Chilean Parent company that mostly owns mining companies one of which is an American company called Twin Metals, Minnesota They want to build a 1.7 up to two billion dollar Nicolas Lirio (33:19.072) underground complex and they swear that the technology, all the doom and gloom that's going on, the technology is not the same that, you know, they, they're not going to have a bunch of, sulfuric acid, which is the problem, right? Cause, they're taking out the sulfur is kind of the by-product. And so you mix that with water, and it gets into, and, air or it mixes with our atmosphere. 2SO4 is the chemical compound for sulfuric acid. You are an educated man. I would not, I would not have guessed that in a million years. And, and so the concern is not that we're taking out copper, nickel and cobalt. The concern is that the by-product, which is sulfur would start leaking into the water. Now here's the thing. This sits right on. I got to find it. Cause I wrote it down. Is it lore, loration? Oh yeah, the Lauren Tide ice sheet, right? Yeah. Lauren, Lauren Tien divide, which is, one of the two major divides in the United States for, for water, for, for, watershed. Thank you. And, and so actually the mine would sit on one side of the watershed that would actually go North and it wouldn't head towards the great lakes. and Nicolas Lirio (34:45.666) but where they would store the sulfur afterwards in their proposed plan would be, it would actually be in the watershed that flows South, goes through the boundary waters and heads to Lake Superior. And so I thought that was really interesting that they would split it like that. the bigger concern, because even if they were pumping out record numbers of sulfur, sippy. Kent Boucher (34:59.808) Okay. Nicolas Lirio (35:14.006) and all of it was hitting the water and it hit Lake Superior. Cause I heard this like, Lake Superior is going to be ruined. Great Lakes. That's like most of the, fresh water in the world, which is true. it actually wouldn't make a dent. Like if they tested the water in the middle of the lake, it would, the readings wouldn't show up at all. So that's not the concern. Here's the concern is even if a tiny amount of sulfuric acid would pass by through this watershed, through the rivers, through the streams, into the smaller lakes on the boundary waters and the canoeing area, it would be detrimental to the ecosystem. One of the main ones I found was a manuman. It's a wild rice basically. And it is their big blue stem. If you get further north, it is a keystone species for that ecological. It would change the pH of the water and where it can survive and Yes, and it manuman rice, I don't know if I'm saying that right. Sorry, guys is actually particularly sensitive to sulfur or sulfur sulfuric acid. And so the idea that dilution is the the Riley Rozendaal (36:26.407) The solution to pollution. One of my favorites. Yep, pretty much. that tattooed on his lower back. If you put poop and brownie batter, the fix would be to get more brownie batter. Nobody. Okay. now for Lake Superior, that actually is probably a semi-practical and I'll say why it doesn't, it's not a perfect solution, but that's just for one of the problems. The main problem is that it's, it's a constant steady stream through these streams. The other And I would also say the other problem is you couldn't have like a riskier environment because there's standing water everywhere in that part of the country. You know, it'd be like if you were to drag a frayed electrical cord through a building, but you're like, but first we're to turn on the sprinkler system for 20 minutes in the building and then you got to drag your cord through and you know, do your best not to electrocute anyone. It's just like, you'd have to be so perfect with it. the problem with these arguments and them saying, we're going to bring all this money. We're going to bring all these jobs. Everybody's going to be better. We can all have electric cars. The problem is these things are never, the bill of goods is never what's sold. These companies are going to tell us, we're going to give you all this stuff and your life is going to be better. But at the end of the day, just like Kent Boucher (37:23.49) how you had that. Riley Rozendaal (37:52.66) Every oil pipeline, every transmission line that sparks and makes a wildfire, they're unintended consequences. Might not be now, might not be five years from now. Something is gonna happen eventually. There's gonna be a tornado or a lightning strike and a tank leaks and you know, it always happens. We don't beat nature. And how long is the mining lease for? No. So actually no lease has been given. So I want to get into that in a second. But the second one, besides the drip of sulfuric acid is where you were kind of alluding to it is the bioaccumulation in the sediment, right? So even if the water is really diluted and that's fine and the fish aren't dying, well, the invertebrates in the streams would be deeply hurt. But, the bioaccumulation in the sediment, even in the lake would get to a point where, and, and sediment has its own ecosystem, right? So Yeah. yeah. Nicolas Lirio (38:49.422) That becomes an issue now What was that question you just had? the duration of the lease that they're applying for. So they actually haven't officially applied yet. through Minnesota, they would have to apply, I believe both at a federal and a state level in Minnesota is likely to be less, much less welcoming on it. So they could actually, it's not a, sure that they're going to open this mind. It's just a, sure that there's no federal protection over it. There's some talks in Minnesota about, their legislation, trying to slap protection on it. And there would be not federally, they wouldn't be able to overturn that. so that, that would be, yeah, that, that still could happen. Now the actual lease that they would have to go through would take years to, push forward and they would have to go through a bunch of environmental reviews and stuff like that. And, and I will say like in Iowa, if you want to build like a bowling alley where they're near a watershed or something like that, you got to go through the DNR. And I believe That's good. Nicolas Lirio (39:58.038) most of those DNR employees are trying their best for what's happening for the ecology. It's just like, and I'm not saying that anybody here is actually getting bribed hard, a company that can throw around a couple billion dollars. They, they got resources to make things happen. You know, they can sway elections. They could do all sorts of things because they're playing on the longterm game. Now you asked a really good question when I was looking into is where is it actually going? Where's the copper and the cobalt? Yeah, the idea is the selling point is look at what this is going to give you. Don't look at what it's taking from you, look at what it's giving you. where's the raw material that's being mined out? Well, and so that's actually pretty tough to find. there's some sources that swore that it was going to go to China and there was, not the Washington post. I think it was New York times in that article. they said that the belief that it's going to China is more because, chili has strong ties to China. the, not that there's actually a business deal that's drawn out on where it's going to go yet. I mean, the lease hasn't even that sign. so, but then there's other arguments that we are doing it because of China, because we're dependent on China for these mining things, which brings up another really good argument. I totally disagree with this going through and I do not want this mind to be set there. I want to be clear. The best argument in my mind is China doesn't give a rip. India is not given a rip about how they're mining their stuff. And so would it be better to do it here? with some ecological good ecological practices than whatever they're doing over there, which, you know, the most polluted countries in the world. and that's the best argument. don't think it's a good enough argument to have it passed through. but to me that's the best argument. but it's more of a, the bigger argument for Congress is a national security threat, right? The whole China AI they're going to take over and, you know, kill your dog and all that other stuff that, you know, and so, Kent Boucher (42:01.134) arms race. Yeah. Or really, who really wins? Yeah. Well, who won when who won during the Cold War when all those missiles were made? Yeah. Missiles.com. Yeah, here we are in a cold war. Riley Rozendaal (42:15.822) I would I would have everybody look up Carl Sagan gave it really Telling speech in front of Congress back I think was in the 80s or 90s talking about how We'd spent trillions of dollars between us and you know, Russia we could have Soviet Union at the time I guess you could have put towards literally anything. Yeah, you know and for what? I don't know curing anything. Yeah. I, there are stuff going on behind the scenes of the behind the scenes with this thing. but I've sent a couple of emails about it. I, know, most of the people that I know that care about ecology have, have voiced their opinions on it. I, you know, I would encourage you to figure out what's actually going on. If you think it's better or not for the United States to give up our most pristine wilderness area. I might sound biased because I am, but you know. No, no, no, our most, our last. Last, yeah. pristine. Everything else has been altered. Everything else has had its problems. Yeah. Wait, even more than like, I mean, I've been to Yosemite. That place is pretty awesome. Kent Boucher (43:26.542) Any grizzly bears in U.S. 70 anymore? Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. The I do. They are on the state flag though. Yeah, there's at least one. Yeah, they keep it around in a cage man. Well, I think this is a big deal. I don't want it It's hard to argue economics and we've talked about this here on the podcast the old reasonable Well, you know for the families, you know This is gonna raise the average American household from 60,000 a year to eighty four thousand dollars a year You know and if I thought that ended up pooling at the American bottom, there'd be a that'd be a stronger argument but it's like Ken and I were joking Nicolas Lirio (44:06.254) I met a guy once when I was at Olive Garden and he came in and he was like, his job was to take the power lines in California and put them on the ground. And he was like, they couldn't find anyone to do it. He was a forester. Technically they couldn't find anyone to do it. So they were, they basically guaranteed he'd retire with a big fat sack of money within 10 years. I mean, he started when he was like 26 at 36. He was going to be richer than most of us could ever be. And he came in and he was hammering drunk and he was talking about All sorts of things that were inappropriate and I was like, good. This is where the wealth is pooling. Right. And for what? For what? You get what? $2 million? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? You're going to buy the same pair of pants everybody else is going to buy and... Yep, the people that want this stuff so bad, their mindset is, and I'll let you decide if it's right or not, but it's here and now over what's coming in the future. It just always is. Yeah. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (45:08.216) I really want to know what locals to the area, you know, within a 30 or 40 minute drive of that air. I want to know what they think. Cause I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find this. I found a bunch of local Minnesotans that regularly visit. and there's a lot of like that matters, but I want to know someone who lives out in that area who hardly has any cell service or in a small town in Northern Minnesota. I want to know what they think of the boundary waters and the mining company that comes. Cause maybe Maybe I don't think this is the case, but maybe they're so impoverished up there. They're like, yeah, anything please. We need some economic. And I think that carries weight, but I want to know what the locals think. And I just couldn't find anything. So man, well not to be a Debbie downer, but we appreciate you all. Don't forget to check out the form. Thank you everyone who signed up for the forum. That was a shocking amount of humans. Honestly, I was not ready. There's only a few posts right now, but the, actually get to see how many members sign up on the backend. And that was. That was really cool. So we appreciate you all. Make sure you're getting outside, looking at the ephemerals while they're still there before your big blue stem takes over your prairies. If you're looking to plant, not too late, but we will talk to you again next time.