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Rare moose sighting near Cherry
My social media feed has been abuzz with pictures and tales of moose patrolling Highway 37 near my ancestral lands of Cherry, Minnesota. The Mesabi Daily News reports this morning that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has issued a warning to motorists to be on alert for two young female moose in the area just…
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What’s behind Mesabi Nugget’s long term idle?
This week, Indiana-based Steel Dynamics announced the indefinite idling of its Minnesota properties, including Mesabi Nugget in Hoyt Lakes and Mining Resources near Chisholm, a scram mining operation that produced iron concentrate used by Mesabi Nugget. About 200 people will lose their jobs and there is no clear sense of when these properties will reopen, though Steel…
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Essar ramps up Nashwauk construction
Construction is accelerating at the long awaited $1.9 billion Essar iron mine near Nashwauk, while Essar now says it’s optimistic about producing direct reduced iron products here. In a tour of the site on May 21 with Mitch Brunfelt, Essar’s assistant general counsel and director of government and public relations, I took pictures and observed…
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Hwy 53 funds fall victim to turbulent session
Among the many casualties of the rocky legislative session was primary funding for the relocation of Highway 53, the road that connects Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range to Duluth and the rest of the state. Now, local elected leaders and Department of Transportation officials say that unless Highway 53 funding is part of the anticipated special…
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IRRRB mulls $33 million 2016 budget
Even though the legislative session may go to the wire tonight at midnight, Iron Range lawmakers — who comprise the statutory Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board — will meet Tuesday morning in St. Paul to hash out the agency’s $33 million FY 2016 budget. “I am pleased that over half of the proposed budget…
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MN sulfate rule compromise treads water
While the economy will be the bigger story on the Iron Range this summer, we have a development in the ongoing saga of Minnesota’s wild rice sulfate standard and the industries and communities it affects. Earlier this spring, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency proposed adjusting the 10 mg per liter sulfate standard designed to preserve the…
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An economy stuck on ‘trudge’
According to Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development data from late 2014, for the first time in the 14-year history of this survey, there are more jobs available for residents of Northeastern Minnesota than there are people seeking jobs. That sounds pretty good, until you read the fine print. Last week, the Jobs Now Coalition…
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Magnetation to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Last week we reported the financial woes of Magnetation, the scram mining and iron ore processing company based on the western Mesabi Iron Range. Their partner and chief customer AK Steel declined to continue putting money into the company and Magnetation began working with financial advisors to keep the company afloat. Rumors were grim, to…
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Cliffs lays off 100 Iron Range salaried workers
On Monday, Cliffs Natural Resources announced 100 job cuts at its Northern Minnesota mines affecting salaried workers at Hibbing Taconite, United Taconite in Eveleth and Northshore Mining in Babbitt and Silver Bay. Cliffs had declared optimism about avoiding Iron Range shutdowns just last week, but also unveiled a mine closure in Michigan and huge first quarter losses.…
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The distant barons of Duluth and the Iron Range
As readers here know, we in Northern Minnesota are living in a time of speculation and bewilderment over the machinations of distant industrial powers. The regional economy of the Iron Range is dangling on a bouncing string pulled by unseen actors. But this is nothing new. Same now as it ever was. Zenith City Online, a…
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Life is for people, not industries or ideologies
Northland’s NewsCenter recently completed a four-part series “Boom, Bust, and Beyond” about the causes and effects of the coming mining downturn on the Iron Range and ways to deal with it. The last piece focused on economic diversification, a frequent topic here at MinnesotaBrown, and featured an interview with yours truly, along with other Range officials…
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Audit shows lack of clarity, transparency in mining taxes
UPDATE: Post amended to reflect corrections from conflating IRRRB with genteral practice of mining taxation. Yesterday, Minnesota’s Legislative Auditor released a highly anticipated review of the financial practices of the state’s mining taxation system, which funds loval governments and the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, the unique state agency that distributes funds from the Taconite Production Tax,…
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Cliffs optimistic even as other Iron Range mines struggle
UPDATE: Post amended to add Cliffs plant shutodown in Michigan. We’ve spend an exhausting amount of digital ink and radio blathering on the struggles facing Iron Range mines amid a global contraction in steelmaking and iron ore. U.S. Steel properties in Northern Minnesota are preparing for shutdown that could last the rest of the year, while…
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Dire challenges ahead for Magnetation
The scram mining company Magnetation appears headed for a make or break moment in coming months after partner AK Steel said Tuesday it would not put any more money into the company. Right now Magnetation processes waste rock at old Mesabi Iron Range mine sites into iron pellets that feed AK Steel’s operations in Indiana.…
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An interview with Canada’s Governor General
Thanks to a strange set of circumstances involving Twitter and a longstanding history of witty repartee with the Canadian Consulate’s digital team, I was granted the chance to interview His Excellency, the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, on Thursday, April 23. The Governor General, constitutional head of the Canadian government as representative of…