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News from the equinox
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, March 29, 2009 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece will air on next week’s “Between You and Me,” Saturday morning on 91.7 KAXE. News from the equinox By Aaron J. Brown Last week we welcomed the spring equinox. Note that I did…
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Ain’t no party like a Chisholm party (’cause a Chisholm party don’t stop)
Highway 169 by Chisholm will be out of commission all summer (story from the Duluth News Tribune). From April 1 until first snow, traffic will be routed through downtown Chisholm while repair work is done on the highway. The road travels over an “underworld” of underground mine shafts that have been collapsing and shifting for…
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The Lone Pine India Holi Polka
Most followers of Range news have been tracking the Essar Steel development in Nashwauk, a new mine and steel plant owned by an international India-based steel company. Iron Range officials and educators are trying hard to embrace the Indian culture of the Essar managers and employees being assigned to the new facility as it begins…
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Outdoors Council ‘green lights’ vast northern Minnesota forest project
On Monday, the Lessard Council officially offered its blessing for the the first $20 million allocation of the Upper Mississippi Forest Project, an initiative to buy a permanent easement on vast tracts of forest lands and wetlands mostly in Itasca County. I wrote a post about the topic a couple weeks ago. The idea is…
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More commotion in Range economic development
I’m still catching up from my trip to the Twin Cities. Here are some of the headlines from the last two days. Essar Steel is delayed eight months because of financing issues. This is the combined mine and steel mill in Nashwauk that’s been talked about in some form for approaching two decades but that…
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Who are the true owners of these lands, forests and waters?
I am a proud resident of rural Itasca County in the great north woods of Northern Minnesota. My corner of the world stands on the western end of the storied Iron Range which itself rests on the edge of a massive forest that stretches for miles, fading into marshes, rivers, lakes and the Canadian border…
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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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On the brink of the new, or the end
This is my weekly column for the Hibbing Daily Tribune published Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009. On the brink of the new, or the endBy Aaron J. Brown Today, amid the droning headlines of the flagging national economy, Iām here to write the words you long to hear. Everything on the Iron Range is going to…
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Future cleanup represents sticking point for nonferrous mining on the Iron Range
The Mesabi Daily News ran a Sunday piece by Jon Collins about the ongoing debate about a new bill that would limit nonferrous mining (copper, nickel and other minerals) in Minnesota to a very precise set of circumstances. Mining proponents say the bill amounts to a ban on nonferrous mining. Supporters of the bill say…
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Paper: Range mines won’t benefit much from stimulus package
The Duluth News Tribune published a Peter Passi story today quoting industry analysts saying that the economic stimulus package being negotiated in Washington does not stand to benefit the Iron Range much. That is, unless the demand for durable goods like cars and washing machines improves. This comes in contrast to the MinnPost story I…
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Lobbyist, Lobbyist, Lawmaker, Lobbyist, Lobbyist,
Here’s an interesting story from Jon Collins, the legislative correspondent for the Mesabi Daily News, Hibbing Daily Tribune, Grand Rapids Herald-Review and other northern papers. I’ll show you the headline as it appeared in the Mesabi Daily News: Lobbyists outnumber lawmakers by 4-1Good or bad? Both I’m going to go out on a limb and…
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Good news? It’s mostly bad
A busy weekend in Range news: A stretch of Highway 169 by Chisholm might be threatened by collapsing underground mine shafts beneath (from Saturday’s Duluth News Tribune). These are the same patchwork collection of tunnels that caused structural damage at nearby Ironworld a couple years ago. All I’ve got to say is that if you…
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From behind storm clouds, light can be shed on Range’s troubled cities and schools
Here’s an update to my Sunday post about Iron Range cities sharing services. That post was original prompted by the Mesabi Daily News‘ Sunday editorial calling on East Range cities to get behind a joint wastewater plant, which I agree with. What I didn’t mention was that the editorial said that State Rep. Tom Rukavina…
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What do Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago and the Iron Range have in common? (Hint: not weather)
This PTI story from LiveMint.com details the Essar Steel group’s efforts to expand its standing in the international steel market. In addition to the Essar Steel Minnesota project we follow here (that’s the integrated iron ore mine and steel mill under construction near Nashwauk), the story details major plans for Essar in Brazil and Trinidad…
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The porcupine and the beaver
I love this cartoon from Wednesday’s Grand Rapids Herald-Review, submitted to the paper by Jeanne Newstrom.I don’t exactly get it, but I love it anyway. Here what I know. The issue is the sale of land from Itasca County to Essar Steel for its up-and-coming Minnesota mining and steel mill operations near Nashwauk. A faction…