Gogebic a go-go?

Here’s a Duluth News Tribune update by way of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on that proposed open pit iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin along the Gogebic Range. My prediction: developers overstating the number of jobs will do battle with environmentalists overstating the environmental risk. The result will underwhelm us all.

I support anything that gets local newscasters to say the word “Gogebic” with a frightened, tentative look straight to camera. Do a shot if you hear “Goj-bick.”

Comments

  1. Speaking of mines, I was talking with an acquaintance who told me that his current job is over near Brainerd, helping to set up a new mine for a precious metal. I am blanking on the name now. Sheesh, Starts with M, sounds like a creature. Anyway, he said that when it is all set up, the mine will be staffed and run by TWO people!!!!!! (Maybe it is manganese????) Have you heard about this?

  2. It IS manganese. I’ve heard of it! Yes, welcome to the bold new world of mineral extraction. All the same great profits you’ve come to love, this time with 75 percent fewer jobs. I suppose the same is true of most industries.

  3. He had a chunk of this stuff in his pocket. I held it. He said it was inert, due to oxidation. It scared me, but the other person in the conversation was a chemistry major and he held it too.

    He said that the ore will go to one of the Range towns (Colerain??) to be processed, so maybe that will provide some jobs.

    My husband is friends with a man who has a cabin in the East Range area, near that precious metal development over there. He claims that he has researched this on line, conversing with some people in Scandinavia, who say that stuff is much worse than the local companies are claiming. I am chemistry-stupid, so I don’t have a clue. But I know that water runs downhill, and down hill can be toward the boundary waters, so I am concerned. It isn’t like mining companies have a sterling track record. More importantly, what isn’t being told?

  4. The first official recorded notice of the presence of iron ore on the Gogebic Range was included in the 1848 report of Dr. A. Randall, who saw exposures of iron ore on the Fourth Principal Meridian which crosses the range approximately halfway between Hurley and Mellen, in Wisconsin.

    http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-54463_18670_18793-53100–,00.html

    This is nothing new I suppose. As the ore is depleted, we have to go to the harder stuff.

  5. Last night on Range 11, I heard “PAW-lo” in reference to the rural area south of Aurora. Are Hispanics edging out the Finns over there? 🙂

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