A subsidiary of Twin Metals Minnesota, the company seeking to build an underground mine for copper and nickel near Ely, has submitted a plan to the state to conduct additional mineral exploration in the area just outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Franconia Minerals is proposing to conduct exploratory drilling at up to 19 sites on private and state-owned land on the north and south shores of Birch Lake, about five miles east of Babbitt.

The area is separate and just south of where Twin Metals has proposed building its underground copper-nickel mine.

Mining companies have explored the area off and on for about 20 years. Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, drilled exploratory holes at about six sites in the same general vicinity in 202

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