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March 11: hockey, the Range and the ‘Overburden’ Twin Cities debut
The Virginia Blue Devils defeated Hibbing to win the Section 7A hockey tournament tonight, advancing to the Minnesota State Hockey Tournament next week. Virginia will be representing the Iron Range at state and, despite being a Hibbing native with only limited knowledge of hockey in general, I’ll be backing the Devils at state. The Iron…
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Klobuchar secures funding for International Falls plasma energy project
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)secured $1 million in funding to explore turning municipal waste into energy in International Falls. The border town’s State Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) had secured early funding last year that allowed the city to do preliminary studies for the concept. Municipal waste burners are not without their controversy, but at…
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The real story on these banks
I don’t often insist that you do something, but I am doing that now. Check this out. I am a frequent listener of “The American Life” on NPR and released as a very popular podcast. The shows are always interesting, providing a fascinating look at aspects of American society and culture. But their show this…
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Classic Iron Range showdown tonight
Tonight the Hibbing/Chisholm Bluejackets battle the Virginia/MIB Blue Devils for the Section 7A boys hockey championship in Duluth. Hibbing vs. Virginia is a classic Range rivalry. The only shame here is that the game isn’t taking place at an Iron Range arena. The winner goes to the state tourney next week. As the Iron Range’s…
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In times like these, what’s a Big Coal paper to do?
If you want to know what a quintessential Mesabi Daily News editorial looks like, check out today’s offering. In some random protest in Washington, D.C., a protester shouted “No coal, no oil.” Because of that (outrage!), readers are told we need the “clean coal” boondoggle Excelsior Energy on the Iron Range — a project bloated…
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Gloomy night
There was a somber feeling all over the city of Virginia last night. ArcelorMittal made it official Tuesday by announcing that the Minorca Mine would be idled for an additional three months after its scheduled April maintenance shutdown. This was expected, but in combination with MinnTac’s announced 590 layoffs from last week it adds to…
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Back to the underworld
Yesterday, Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Kelleher described the highway work being done to Highway 169 by Chisholm as part of the federal stimulus bill. This part of the Iron Range had already drawn attention because of the vast “underworld” of abandoned mine shafts dug beneath the modern workings of the place. These underground mines caused…
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Rhetoric heats up in Range mining battle
The Duluth News Tribune ran a Sunday editorial blasting the environmental bill that would place new restrictions on nonferrous mining in Minnesota. It’s interesting to watch the DNT editorial board these days. They lurch to the political left and right at random, it seems. It’s like watching the state TV station of a South American…
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Range paper hits lawmakers’ term extension bill
The Mesabi Daily News echoes some of the same concerns I did about Sens. Tomassoni and Bakk’s proposal to extend Minnesota lawmakers’ terms from four to six years for senators and two to four years for representatives. Read the MDN‘s Sunday editorial. I have no idea why a bill like this would get a hearing…
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Could be worse …
Here are a couple items from Lee Bloomquist’s Range Views blog at Iron Range Resources: The water tower at the new Mesabi Nugget plant near Hoyt Lakes is now up. This week, Magnetation, Inc., shipped its first load of iron concentrate repurposed from old timey mining waste near Keewatin. Related posts: No related posts.
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A-OK by fourth quarter?
Beth Bily filed this story for Business North that details the current state of the mining industry on the Iron Range. This gives a good snapshot of all the mines and companies involved. There are a few other interesting tidbits that haven’t been reported in Minnesota media much. For instance, production and layoffs are running…
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GUEST POST: $12 million that could have helped, didn’t
A while back I offered readers of this blog the opportunity to write guest posts. A few have written me saying they’re thinking about it, but I finally got one for real this week. Bob Tammen is a retired miner from Soudan who has been a vocal critic of nonferrous mining projects on the East…
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‘It’s being taken away’
Anna Kurth and Jeff Warner at the Hibbing Daily Tribune did a nice perspective piece about what recently laid off miners on the Iron Range are thinking about and going through. The miners face challenges and worries, but it’s the other people down the employment food chain who face the prospect of genuine poverty should…
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School start debate spurs controversy
My friend State Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) is leading a fight to stop the start of the school year before Labor Day. (Story from Mesabi Daily News via legislative correspondent Jon Collins). The move to a pre-Labor Day school start would reduce tourism traffic in economically depressed areas that depend on those extra days…
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That other Range writer is OK, I guess
Writers are a jealous lot, myself included. For some time the Duluth News Tribune has been running the columns of Gilbert writer Joseph Legueri under the banner “The Iron Range View.” And my reaction, petty and shallow though it may be, was always “What? Excuse me? I’m sorry, don’t they know that I do the…