-
Range native holds high hopes for ‘Cold November’
This week, hunters across Northern Minnesota will check sights, erect stands and procure truckloads of cheese curds and jerky before opening the rifle deer season next Saturday. Most hope for that perfect shot, the big trophy and a freezer full of venison, but that’s often not the most important detail. For some, it’s the first…
-
Governor Dayton tours mines to inform his PolyMet decision
I’ve already expounded upon challenges facing the iron mining industry on the Mesabi today, but state political news is focusing on the much louder though more theoretical debate over nonferrous mining in Northeastern Minnesota. Well, that debate is finally starting to get real. Gov. Mark Dayton visited the Gilt Edge Mine in South Dakota yesterday and…
-
Another highway debate shows power tilting toward mines
By now, most of you are pretty familiar with the massive Highway 53 project between Virginia and Eveleth on Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. That $240 million re-route of the Iron Range’s most important north-south highway will build two new bridges, included the state’s tallest, to accommodate a 1960s-era agreement with the mines to move the highway…
-
Cliffs CEO threatens to close mine
UPDATE: Cliffs Natural Resources spent most of Monday trying to walk back Goncalves’s comments about closing an Iron Range mine. ### Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources, is threatening to close one of Cliffs’ Iron Range mines in the event Essar Steel opens its new mine near Nashwauk. This is Bill Hanna’s front page story of today’s…
-
Thinkers, tinkers and 3-D printers
Growing up, my dad was a leather whip of a man who chain-smoked Winston cigarettes and spent nearly all his free time tinkering with an invention in his garage. When they first taught us how to use this new thing called “the internet” at my high school, my inaugural search was about patent law, seeking…
-
Paper shows PolyMet runoff could reach BWCA after all
While the proposed nonferrous Polymet mining project near Hoyt Lakes nears the end of its environmental review process, questions remain about the speed with which it could receive permits. One of the most fascinating developments I’ve seen recently is this Marshall Helmberger story in last week’s edition of the Tower Timberjay. According to a June 18,…
-
Highway 53 to the Danger Zone
Right now preparations are underway to reroute Highway 53, Northeastern Minnesota’s north-south corridor, to accommodate a nearly 50-year-old agreement with mining interests. The Cliffs-run United Taconite has put in notice that it wants to mine the area under the current highway, requiring a new one. Engineers say the new Highway 53 will track further east out…
-
Crowd rallies for Steelworkers on the Iron Range
The United Steelworkers held a large rally in the Mesabi Iron Range city of Virginia, Minnesota, last night. The event was well attended by union members and citizens supportive of the union’s ongoing contract negotiations. A pricing and market collapse in iron and steel has caused U.S. Steel and Arcelor-Mittal to demand concessions from labor…
-
Another closed blast furnace a warning to Range mines
On Monday, U.S. Steel announced plans to close a steelmaking facility in Alabama and its accompanying blast furnace. The company said its goal is to reduce costs and improve efficiencies in its production. More than 1,100 workers are affected by this closure. From a U.S. Steel press release: “We have made some difficult decisions over the last…
-
Aurora hit by loss of drug store
Aurora isn’t a very big town, but it’s a sweet little place on the eastern Mesabi Iron Range. It was among the towns most brutally hit by the closure of LTV Steel 14 years ago. While Aurora has carried on since it has also seen the gradual decay of its economy and population, as have most Iron Range…
-
Cliffs seeks permits for value-added iron
Cliffs Natural Resources faces several serious problems: huge debt, an anemic iron ore price, tougher global competition. Nevertheless, Cliffs is announcing that it the company is moving on its proposals to convert a production line at Northshore Mining to direct-reduced iron and to add a flux pellet at the soon-to-be-idled United Taconite. The Mesabi Daily News…
-
A more fashionable future for the Iron Range
Fashion has never been my forte. I often dress in the dark by feeling for the most comfortable fabrics in the closet. Last semester, an art major sitting in the front row of my class informed me that my old grey shirt was, in fact, green. Time finally taught me why my father wears one…
-
Cliffs has bluster, but does it have luster?
Mining, despite its booms and busts, is still vitally important to the economy of Northern Minnesota, but its mechanics are typically so boring as to drive men to drink and/or high-rent metropolitan neighborhoods. For those who follow the doings of the Iron Range mining industry, the conference calls of Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves have become…
-
The politics of the ‘walleye session’
Today Gov. Mark Dayton holds a public forum on the hardships facing business owners on Mille Lacs after the DNR warned that it may have to suspend walleye fishing on the big lake in August. Earlier this week, the governor’s spokesman Linden Zakula made this statement: “Governor Dayton spoke today with both Senate Majority Leader…
-
The haircut heard ’round the Eighth
Stewart Mills, the 2014 GOP nominee in Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District, hasn’t announced officially whether he plans to run for the office again in 2016. But his famous hair seems to be leaning that way. Mills, scion of the well-known Fleet Farm family, lost to Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan by a little over one percentage…