Pressure, time, and the tricky business of hope

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range blogger, author, radio producer and columnist for the Mesabi Tribune.

Pressure and time. That’s how minerals concentrate into ore formations beneath the earth. You might learn this in a geology class. But pressure and time also explain how humans extract those ores. Now we’re talking economics, the kind that affects our lives here on the Mesabi Iron Range.

This spring brings an avalanche of news regarding iron mining, still the Range’s biggest industry in terms of gross domestic product.

For instance, an ongoing economic recovery is fueling historic demand for iron ore and other commodities as production ramps up in the U.S. manufacturing industry. This fact is plainly visible. Go to any local car dealer and observe their difficulty in acquiring enough vehicles to meet demand. The wait for large household appliances like washers, dryers, and ovens also grows longer. Steel, wood, and composite materials fetch a king’s ransom everywhere you look.

In seemingly unrelated news, the State of Minnesota recently announced it would strip Mesabi Metallics of mineral leases on state land near Nashwauk. The company, largely controlled by some of the same Essar Steel officials who declared bankruptcy ten years ago, failed to meet established benchmarks by a May 1 deadline. In essence, Mesabi Metallics couldn’t produce evidence that it had raised $200 million.

Local lawmakers and Steelworkers union officials broadly applauded the state’s intervention after the failure of Mesabi Metallics. They believe Cleveland-Cliffs, with a longstanding presence on the Range, will be a better fit to mine the ore at the former Butler Taconite plant that closed in 1985. But this comes at a price.

This marks the end of hopes for an integrated iron mining and steel-making facility on the Mesabi. This hope had been kindled by two generations of public officials and speculators since Butler shut down. This all began when I was a small boy, coinciding with my family’s own bankruptcy and veritable exile from Nashwauk to a lonely expanse of low priced swampland in the Sax-Zim bog. 

Nevertheless, the tempering of hope provides good news for Hibbing Taconite, a Cliffs-run mine racing toward the end of its natural mine life. Though Cliffs hasn’t said how it plans to keep Hibbing Taconite operating, its plans certainly include the company’s activities in Nashwauk.

Remember, Cliffs was no passive observer in the fall of Mesabi Metallics. Sensing opportunity, the company acquired land critical to the former Essar mining plan. One of the reasons Mesabi Metallics couldn’t raise $200 million was because the fast-charging Cliffs had so asserted itself. 

We might hope that news of super-charged steel markets and continued life at Hibbing Taconite might spur one of the Iron Range’s classic “booms.” We certainly see local taconite plans running hot. But the last 40 years of consolidation and automation mutes all booms. Prosperity in mining affects a smaller number of workers with less direct impact on local communities. Our economy is fundamentally different than the one that existed during the original taconite boom of the 1970s.

Our schools still need more students if they are to afford advanced curriculum and specialized career training. Local businesses always run near the margins. This isn’t just because of ups and downs in mining. Rather, how people buy goods and consume services has completely changed. Statistically, most Iron Rangers are, at this very moment, either trying to figure out how to pay for long term care for themselves or an elderly relative, or child care while a parent works a low wage job. The prices for these services have risen far faster than steel or lumber.

This pressure, over time, applied to families in these situations creates stress that must be relieved for our region to truly thrive.

It’s clear that Cleveland-Cliffs affected the change they desired in the Nashwauk situation. That ore will be spoken for soon, and likely conveyed to Hibbing for processing. This will save hundreds of jobs, a good thing.

But it’s also a reminder about hope, at least as it relates to the economics of mining. In the mining game, hope becomes the most volatile commodity of all. Hope is a penny stock, a dry well, and a spent mine all in one. The only true hope in mining is value. And unless you own the mine, value only manifests as employment and tax revenue. Both of these are finitely capped by the pressure and time of 100 years of mining politics on the Iron Range.

So let us, at least those of us who are not mining executives, think of our Iron Range communities in terms of value. Merely hoping for our local economy to improve will do no good. We may literally spend a lifetime hoping for Minnesota Iron and Steel, Essar Steel, Mesabi Metallics, ERP, or Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to fling open its doors on the edge of Nashwauk. 

We, the people, offer value to this changing world. Meaningful lifestyle, affordable real estate, skills that employers want. So let’s stop downgrading our value and instead add to it. We may apply our own pressure over time as we deploy a strategy of community-building, entrepreneurship and attraction. That is how real hope takes root.

Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and co-hosts the podcast “Power in the Wilderness” on Northern Community Radio. This piece first appeared in the Sunday, May 16, 2021 edition of the Mesabi Tribune.