-
Biochemical firm craps out on Range project
When Segetis, a Golden Valley, Minnesota, biochemical firm first proposed a $105 million project near Hoyt Lakes, it stoked some badly needed hope for the Iron Range. The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board approved a $21.5 million loan package with little opposition. Science! Smart people in lab coats would help save the local economy.…
-
On new space in a bright, green place
Fundamentally, this blog is about place. One of the interesting things about place is how you can always zoom in to see how places are not uniform. Places can be divided into unique stories, times in history, people and plots of land. Now that I live in a rural section of eastern Itasca County, I have become…
-
In union jacket, Bernie Sanders speaks in Hibbing
By Aaron J. Brown and Courtney Kerns / Photos by Wes Bailey and Courtney Kerns This morning Bernie Sanders brought his Democratic Presidential campaign to the historic Hibbing High School auditorium on the Mesabi Iron Range. Wearing a United Steelworkers jacket from Minntac Local 1938, the Vermont Senator took the same stage where a teenage Bob Dylan once played. Hibbing…
-
Bernie Sanders to campaign on the Iron Range
Minnesota’s storied Mesabi Iron Range will host a major presidential candidate this Friday. Sen. Bernie Sanders plans a Feb. 26 morning rally at the Hibbing High School auditorium. See Sanders’ website for information. Doors open at 7:30. Minnesota’s presidential preference vote will take place at major party precinct caucuses next Tuesday, March 1. The Hibbing…
-
The mine bosses’ lament: ‘I owe, I owe’
Yesterday, my Hibbing Daily Tribune column detailed the persistently low prices for iron ore at the root of many of the Iron Range’s current woes. Today, I’m going to talk about debt. Supply and demand is one part of the economic picture for iron ore. Debt is what will probably determine the health of the companies who…
-
IRRRB to discuss new projects, public works
Yesterday we previewed the new school proposal that the Mountain Iron-Buhl school district will make to the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board when it meets at 11 this morning. That’s pretty interesting on its own, but there are a number of other potentially controversial or politically intriguing items on today’s agenda. First, the board will…
-
MI-B seeks collaboration funds for new school
Following legislative action in 2014, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board created a school collaboration fund from local taconite production and occupation taxes. The broad goal was to encourage fiscally challenged Iron Range school districts to share resources, curriculum and staff, or even consolidate. But in practical, baldly political terms, this fund was created…
-
PUC rejects lower power rates for mines
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission dismissed the Minnesota Power petition to allow lower rates for its industrial customers, most notably Iron Range taconite mines, while raising rates for residential customers. The request by Minnesota Power came after a new law passed the state legislature allowing the mines to seek lower rates. Minnesota’s iron mines are reeling amid…
-
Uncertain fate for Soudan underground physics lab
I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that advanced physics research takes place a half mile beneath the earth at the retired Soudan Underground Mine on the Minnesota Iron Range. True, what they do there can be explained. (Mostly it’s research related to isolating the neutrino, a sub-atomic particle believed to be critical to understanding the universe). Yet it…
-
Molten iron in the sky
In China, people are wrapping up the celebration of the lunar new year. With a country as big and economically diverse as China you find many different traditions. I saw this next one on ABC News this morning. In the old steel town of Dunhuang, blacksmiths have an annual New Year tradition of melting scrap…
-
Slide on up to Aurora for Saturday’s show!
In a short time I’ll be making my way across the Mesabi Iron Range to Aurora and Palo as I prepare for this Saturday’s Great Northern Radio Show. If you’d like to see the show live, perhaps after a day of Laskiainen fun in Palo, you need to be seated at the auditorium in Aurora…
-
Iron Range woes on the national stage
It’s always fun to watch what happens when reporters from national publications come to the Iron Range to do major stories. Movers and shakers whisper in low tones about their possible motives, while others clamber for their one chance at being quoted in a paper someone actually reads (maybe?). The results vary, but this time…
-
Busy Hibbing intersection to get roundabout
One of the reasons the Highway 53 bridge project garners so much attention is that, for Iron Rangers, everything that happens on Highway 53 matters. It’s one of the two major highways that connects the band of communities that comprise the Range. The other major Iron Range highway is 169. Though also listed as a…
-
Cliffs to close Empire, move production to Eveleth
Odds of United Taconite in Eveleth reopening this spring took a big jump today after Cliffs Natural Resources announced it would be closing its Empire Mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. From UpperMichigan Source: The Empire Mine will permanently close this year. That could mean over 500 employees losing their jobs. Cliffs Natural Resources CEO Lourenco…
-
Warmer winters part of MN moose dilemma
The Minnesota Associated Press reports that researchers are closer to finding out why so many Minnesota moose have been dying off in recent years. Theories abounded over the past few years. The truth, as you might expect, is somewhat complex. Wolf kills are an obvious reason for many deaths, but a variety of natural causes such as…