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Reeling U.S. Steel asks for relief on state mining leases
Socked by a global iron and steel price collapse, U.S. Steel is asking the state for a reduction in the cost of its state-owned mining leases, which currently fund trusts benefiting Minnesota universities and schools. The company needs to reduce costs by about $25 million to reopen its Iron Range properties. The 114-year-old Pittsburgh-based company announced earlier this…
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Mining may displace yet another Iron Range highway
By now we’ve talked plenty about the rerouting project for Iron Range Highways 53 and 135 near Virginia and Eveleth to accommodate new mining activity at Cliffs’ United Taconite mine. Now Cliffs says it will need to move Highway 5 between Hibbing and Chisholm to allow Hibbing Taconite to continue mining. The project would happen…
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Mesabi Nugget stays down; U.S. Steel continues cuts
Business North reports that Steel Dynamics, owner of the Mesabi Nugget plant in Hoyt Lakes, will keep the plant idled as the price of iron remains lower than the cost of production. The idling was announced months ago with the hope that it would end after new equipment was installed during the shutdown. Though the upgrades…
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Legislative Auditor to investigate IRRRB
The Star Tribune reports that the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board agency will face a review by Minnesota’s Legislative Auditor after months of scrutiny by the state’s largest newspaper. The April 18 story seems to indicate that Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles would focus on a widely reported deal to help relocate a Democratic-leaning call…
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‘Vintage’ baseball on the Iron Range
Here’s the deal, see. They’re forming a ball club, see. Up at the Minnesota Discovery Center, see. Yeah, the old Ironworld. Yeah, by the Glen Location, see. Grow your best muttonchops and handlebar mustache, see. We’re getting the Orators back together. That’s right, the Chisholm Orators, terrors of the infield back when Silent Cal Coolidge was…
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Iron Range Earth Fest promises blend of heart and Sol
If you follow national and international news, it’s easy to see some underlying trends hovering just off the front pages. The cost of solar energy has gone way down in the last couple years, making it affordable and arguably a leading prospect for new energy production in the near future. Climate change continues to affect places all…
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Iron Range mines must modernize to survive
As the iron mining and steel industries gird for a hard year of low prices and intense international competition, iron mining executives and academics meet in Duluth this week for the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Minnesota conference. WDIO reported on the Tuesday keynote by Don Fosnacht, director of the Center for Applied Research and…
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Global view of iron ore casts dim light on the Giant Mesabi
What’s happening on the Iron Range right now is much like the calm before the storm, or the eerie quiet of a city soon to be under siege. We know that come June nearly 1,200 iron miners will be out of work, with many more likely to follow. We’re not confident when people will be…
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‘Last Call for the Mitchell Yards’ tonight
I’m excited to tell you about a new documentary you can see for the first time tonight on WDSE/WRPT PBS North. “Last Call for the Mitchell Yards” shares the story of the Mitchell Yards, an abandoned Iron Range railway station between Hibbing and Chisholm that once handled 80 percent of the iron ore used by…
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An uncomfortable truth about Iron Range’s mining woes
Here on the Iron Range one cannot escape the talk of impending layoffs at area iron mines. You also can’t mistake who company officials and unions alike blame for this situation: foreign steel dumping. “Dumping” means foreign companies, sometimes as extensions of foreign governments, sell steel for less than it costs to produce, just to move it off their shores. Usually their…
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Dry spring jacks up fire danger in Northern Minnesota
It’s been an unseasonably dry spring so far in Northern Minnesota, so much so that yesterday’s high winds generated a tinder box of wildfires across the region. None grew out of control, but forestry people I know were hopping between at least a dozen small fires just in the immediate region. The temperatures fell quite…
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Ely, MN, bans drones, effective April 1
It’s April 1, which means Ely, Minnesota, is up to its annual shenanigans: Find out more about Ely’s campaign to ban drones. Related posts: No related posts.
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MinnTac to lay off 700 in taconite slowdown
UPDATE (4/1/15): Minnesota Public Radio reports on the conditions in Iron Range taconite mining. I was on the midmorning MPR News program yesterday talking about the situation. (3/31/15) — This morning, U.S. Steel announced 700 impending layoffs at MinnTac, the Iron Range’s largest taconite plant. U.S. Steel had already announced the idling of its Keewatin Taconite property…
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A close look at Essar construction
Yesterday, Dan Kraker of Minnesota Public Radio filed a report about Essar Minnesota, the new taconite plant under construction near Nashwauk, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range. In essence, the long awaited project — funded in part by massive state and regional investments — has reached the critical mass needed to see completion (as soon…
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Stunning video shows new Hwy 53 route
If completed as planned, the Highway 53 relocation project on Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range will be the region’s biggest transportation project for a generation or more. We’ve discussed the project’s pros and cons, its route and how it will affect communities here at MinnesotaBrown, but do we really understand what it will look like? Aerial…