-
Tailings basin concerns for Iron Range’s MinnTac mine
The state will be looking closely at permit renewal plans at MinnTac in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, after the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued concerns recently that the tailings basin at Minnesota’s largest taconite mine inadequately filters runoff into area waters, including those that flow into Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters Canoe area. The Star…
-
Range leaders beginning to talk broadband
This morning, the Mesabi Daily News and Hibbing Daily Tribune published a Bill Hanna story about rural broadband. It begins: ST. PAUL — The governor and lawmakers, both in northern and southern parts of the state, agree that better broadband is needed in rural areas, especially as an economic development tool. But there is real concern…
-
McReynolds-Pellinen named to Virginia City Council
Last night on the east central Mesabi Iron Range, Mary McReynolds-Pellinen was sworn in as a Virginia (Minn.) City Council member. The city council appointed her to fill a seat left vacant when Larry Cuffe was elected mayor in the last election. McReynolds-Pellinen was the fourth highest vote-getter in the at-large council race in that…
-
Sitting Range senator takes job with lobbying group
UPDATE 3: Moments ago, State Sen. Tom Bakk, the Senate Majority Leader, issued this statement regarding Sen. Tomassoni’s new job: ST. PAUL, Minn. – Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook) released the following statement concerning Sen. David Tomassoni’s employment at the Range Association of Municipalities and Schools. “As Sen. Tomassoni has publicly indicated, he has…
-
Big meeting Monday between Cliffs CEO, Range lawmakers
On Monday, Iron Range lawmakers will meet with the new CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources in St. Paul. The meeting has the potential to be hugely influential in several political matters facing Northern Minnesota, particularly the Essar Steel project on the western Mesabi. CEO Lourenco Goncalves was installed by the board of directors that prevailed…
-
Governor names Mark Phillips as IRRRB commissioner
Today, Gov. Mark Dayton is expected to name Mark Phillips as the next Commissioner of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB). Phillips, an Eveleth native, served as Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development in Dayton’s first term, resigning in October 2012. He has worked in the private sector as a business…
-
The Iron Range’s Highway 53 paradox
It’s rare to see an issue unify people of different political persuasions, but perhaps even rarer for the reason to be abject bafflement. So it goes for the not-so-small matter of the Highway 53 relocation project on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. As we learned late in 2014, the state department of transportation has selected a preferred…
-
New Iron Range plant produces ore ahead of schedule
Fans of “Star Wars” might appreciate this reference: The scram mining and iron producer Magnetation announced on New Year’s Eve that its Plant 4 production facility is quite operational. Just like the Death Star in “Return of the Jedi,” the ongoing completion of construction wouldn’t deter the timely execution of the company’s strategy in 2015. A strained metaphor perhaps (Magnetation…
-
MinnesotaBrown’s Top Posts for 2014
Another year of posts are stacked in the virtual silo of the MinnesotaBrown.com electronic archives. The fact that few people ever read the archives when they visit a website is a sad reality of our modern information age. Much to know, little to remember. As such, today I remember the year that was, the posts you liked, the…
-
Districts seek more production from school trust land
If you ever get tired of trying to figure out how the IRRRB works, another unique foible of Minnesota’s relationship with iron mining is the state school trust fund. About 2.5 million acres of land, primarily in Northern Minnesota, are set aside to raise funds for school districts throughout the state. Some of this land…
-
Essar seeks legislation to avoid paying back public funds
Last week, Northern Minnesota media sources, with help from new lobbying activity by Essar Steel Minnesota, finally connected the dots that this proposed new Iron Range taconite mine would really, truly not build a steel mill with its project as originally planned. As such, Essar is due to run afoul of the agreement that brought $67 million in…
-
Rock and a hard place, change coming to the Iron Range
Some of life’s biggest myths are that 30 years is a long time, that today doesn’t matter, and that anything is permanent. Here on Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, the lessons of change that come from digging out the ground beneath our very feet have been hard learned. But what’s learned is so easily forgotten after those paltry 30 years.…
-
Longyear finally buys former Ainsworth site in Grand Rapids
Two years ago, I wrote about one of the Iron Range’s oldest families of mining and logging tycoons after Longyear, Inc., signed a purchase agreement for the former Ainsworth mill site in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The story slipped out of sight for 26 months, until late this last week when the deal was finally completed.…
-
Sertich scores historic win in final IRRRB meeting
Earlier this week I wrote that outgoing Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) Commissioner Tony Sertich would either emerge from his last meeting today as Gary Cooper from “High Noon” or end up like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We have our answer. I just checked in with my friend Rep. Tom Anzelc…
-
Ambitious plans, controversy for Sertich’s final IRRRB meeting
On Thursday, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) will hold its final meeting of the year, and the last in which Tony Sertich will be commissioner of the board’s unique state agency funded by local Iron Range mining revenue. The agenda is filled to the brim with everything the IRRRB has come to be known…