I have stayed on Minnesota’s Iron Range my whole life for two reasons. First, it is my home in every sense of the word. Second, I am a writer by trade, and like the fruited plains the Range has always provided ample subject matter.
One of the most interesting dynamics in writing about the Range is the power structure. Today’s political media often focus on the partisan shift away from Democrats and toward Republicans. But history teaches that this isn’t the main story. Instead, I recommend considering three other questions.
How much power do the poorest working class people in the region possess?
How much power do the merchants, middle class and elected leaders possess?
Finally, how much power do the largest mining companies, land owners and distant political interests and corporations possess?
It’s hard to quantify, I suppose, but you can sure tell when these dynamics shift. The 20th century story of the Iron Range was about the rise of the first two groups to nearly equal the third. Here in the 21st, the third group is returning to a level of dominance it hasn’t seen since the McKinley Administration. That’s led to the shift in attitudes that caused our current political realignment.
People will howl in their partisan ways, but really it’s a primal yawp for all we don’t control about our lives and livelihoods. When the money’s not flowing and the future is uncertain, people stop smiling at rainbows and start pounding on chain link fences.
For whose benefit? And to what effect?
That brings me to today’s column, one that took a lot of work and that has me feeling nervous in ways I haven’t been in years. I’m saying something pretty close to what I’ve been writing for two decades. We can figure out a way forward on mining and environmental issues that mitigates risk while holding companies accountable. In fact, I adopt some of the key positions taken by U.S. Steel on this issue.
But can we remain calm and forward-thinking as the region’s mining economy faces a multitude of threats from afar? I worry about that.
Minnesota’s iron mining industry now faces several stark challenges.
First, the U.S. economy is slowing down. Price increases and uncertainty are reducing demand for big ticket steel goods like cars and appliances.
Second, the steel industry is changing. New technology makes cleaner steel in smaller batches using scrap steel and less iron ore. Meanwhile older taconite mines and blast furnaces need billions of dollars in upgrades.
Third, the ore of the Mesabi Iron Range is degrading with time and continued mining. There’s still plenty of iron here, but in places the ore is getting harder and less pure, requiring more energy and cost to process. New iron producers across the globe add further pressure. For instance, the Simandou mine in Guinea is expected to ship some of the richest iron ore in the world starting this November.
Finally, there is the matter that brought about 500 people to an Iron Range conference center last week to testify to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
A state water regulation protecting wild rice went unenforced for more than five decades. But this year the MPCA rejected a variance for Keewatin Taconite, the first of Minnesota’s six iron mines to be held to the standard during permit renewals. U.S. Steel says that complying with wild rice sulfate standard of 10mg per liter would cost more than $800 million, enough to throw the viability of the mine into doubt.
Emotions at the hearing ran hot. The Range is collectively anxious to a degree I haven’t seen since LTV Steel closed its Hoyt Lakes mine almost 25 years ago. A new generation of workers wonder if they will experience the devastation of massive job losses akin to the local depression my family experienced when I was growing up here in the 1980s.
The fact that this is all filtered through the context of an environmental regulation is unfortunate. For one thing, “environmentalists” provide an overly convenient foil in this hyper-partisan Trump Era. For another, the problems run much deeper and require much broader solutions to truly rebuild the Range economy. But if we can’t solve this environmental problem, we probably won’t solve the others, either. So let’s start here and now.
Read “Sulfate debate yields hard truths and hope for Iron Range jobs,” in the Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
