As the rail authority turns …

The Itasca County Regional Rail Authority held a special meeting Tuesday. At stake, the future of a $1.6 billion project that has stood as the golden economic hope of the Iron Range people. Like I said, the Range often operates like the South in that vital decisions are made at the most obscure of public meetings or watering holes.

In essence, the county and city of Nashwauk are focusing its efforts on the steel plant and not the Mesaba Energy Project, the boondoggle coal gas power plant that has somehow united the state chamber of commerce and virtually all customers of whole foods co-ops in the region against it. By all means, try to read this tome from the Grand Rapids Herald-Review. The meeting and follow-up county board meeting was more notable for its drama than for any concrete decisions.

There had been questions about whether the public money allocated from various sources for the steel plant could be used to upgrade the natural gas line to include the Mesaba project. While there is some small chance that a small part of the money could be used for the power plant, it looks like officials are focusing in on the steel plant to avoid financial arguments with its new owner, Essar Steel of India.

Here are the questions I still have:
  • Do the county and Nashwauk have enough money to build what Essar think they’ll build?
  • Is Essar still hemming and hawing about actually breaking ground on the project? If so, why?
  • How do you build an Iron Range mining facility in the winter? (Groundbreaking is scheduled for September … so far)

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