MinnPost – Nonprofit, independent journalism. Supported by readers.MinnPost –
Julie C. Lucas is the executive director of MiningMinnesota.
It’s understandable why there’s concern about copper-nickel mining upstream from the BWCA, but let’s have a fact-based conversation.
The postcard illustrating this commentary is from the 1940s and sums up the Iron Range, the Minnesota region I call home. At one time, the Hull Rust Mahoning Mine in Hibbing was the world’s largest iron ore producing mine.
Now, it’s one portion of a substantially larger mining operation that produces needed iron ore for our domestic steel industry, as it has since the first hematite mine opened at that site in 1895. Along the Mesabi Iron Range, we have several operating taconite mines and, just outside their gates, we have “shimmering waters” just as we did in the 1940s.
It is a joy to live here with the abundant, clean waters and the surrounding dense forests. Let me be lost in the pines, paddling on the lakes, photographing every sunrise and sunset that my schedule allows. There is a reason that Interstate 35 will soon be backed up with traffic heading north from the Twin Cities metro for the Memorial Day weekend — what others seek as a vacation, I have as just another day in the life.
For the rest of this column: https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2025/05/mining-and-a-healthy-environment-we-can-have-both-in-minnesota/