Who remembers “The Little Prince?” In this French children’s book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a pilot meets an alien who looks like a little kid. This “Little Prince” lives on a tiny planet where all he does is pull up the baobab trees so they don’t take root and choke his world. C’est une métaphore!
This comes on the heels of several Range news stories that are far from “breaking.” The Canisteo mine pit near Bovey is an impending flood risk. True, but that was predicted a decade ago and nothing was done. The rare cancer mesothelioma got headlines last year after the state health department withheld a statistical analysis showing how taconite miners were at higher risk of contracting the disease. Our TV screens were flooded with officials who were “shocked, just shocked” by the news, but this story has been around for a decade or more, too. Old timers will tell you they could sense there was something wrong in the taconite dust back in the ’70s.
City water dipping toward critical level
By Mike Jennings, Editor,
Hibbing Daily Tribune
HIBBING — Water produced by a key well is falling toward critical levels, and officials at Hibbing’s Public Utilities are seeking expert help in determing what to do next.Corey Lubovich, chief of utility operations, told the city’s utilities commission Tuesday that water being pumped form the Scranton well, the city’s most productive water source, had fallen by 100 gallons per minute over the previous 30 days, to a level of 565 gallons per minute.
“It’s still dropping,” Lubovich said.
Jim Kochevar, the utilities’ general manager, said his staff is searching for an engineering firm that can advise it on what to do. He said options include developing one or more new wells, including a test bore that has already been dug in the North Hibbing Industrial Park, or trying to rehabilitate the Scranton well.The city also draws water from five smaller wells that stretch southward from First Ave. Road.
“I think that it’s important that we move on this as early as possible,” Kochevar said. “You know, if we bobble somewhere, that may get us into a circumstance of having to curtail water use.”
He told the commission that water production from the Scranton well should remain sufficient to meet normal needs for at least the next two or three months, but restrictions on some types of water use, such as car washing and lawn sprinkling, were possible by next summer.
The amount of water that can be pumped from the Scranton well on Hibbing’s north side depends on the depth of the water inside it. Utilities officials say water in the well is getting shallower because the Hibbing Taconite Co. has pumped water from a mine pit 200 yards away.
Kochevar said that by dewatering the mine pit to get at a vein of taconite, the company is also reducing the level of standing water in the aquifer-fed well. The well’s production is now down to about half its peak capacity, he said.
You mention the “rare mesothelioma cancer” issue. I think that this issue is just another ploy by the anti mining, anti big business media machine trying to make the mines look bad. In the last 30 years there have been tens of thousands of workers in our area mines, and 50 or so people came down with this cancer that may or may not be linked to mine dust? How big a deal is this?
C.O.
I wonder if the tax payers in Hibbing realize where their money is going?
“Jim Kochevar, the utilities’ general manager, said his staff is searching for an engineering firm that can advise it on what to do.”
Why is the staff searching for an engineering firm? They need to hire an outside engineer to tell them to drill more wells?
C.O.