Iron Ore

http://www.virginiamn.com/

Make no mistake about it, the Iron Range knows this is an attack on mining and
it will have no more of it. The region and its miners, laborers, businesses,
residents — everyone here — is committed to meeting and exceeding the standards
of the federal government’s environmental reviews. We are not here to destroy
the land we use everyday.

We have a deep pride in our history of mining. We helped the United States win
wars over dictators, the iron ore leaving here by train helps fuel the economy
of Duluth and Two Harbors. It builds safe, reliable infrastructure from U.S.-made
steel, and the minerals this region wants to mine will provide for the tech boom
in Silicon Valley. (Mesabi Daily News Editorial)

The Iron Range and its rich history of mining is in a fight for its future, and the deck is stacked against it.

There’s overreaching actions taken by a lame duck administration, there’s delays forced by lawsuit after lawsuit from deep-pocketed environmental groups, and there’s scare tactics to steer popular opinion against the region’s way of life. Enough is enough: It ends here. It started here, and the fight will end here.

The Iron Range is done being paraded around in the three-ring circus of hearings, resolutions and comment periods, which are really nothing more than putting the everyday Iron Ranger on trial by a jury of its uniformed peers.

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http://www.virginiamn.com/

MOUNTAIN IRON/ELY — For most of the first half of 2017, the Iron Range has remained laser-focused on its goals in Washington, D.C.

Far from the now-bustling taconite mines and majestic scenery of northeastern Minnesota is where the real political fight to death is taking place. That might not be hyperbole either: What’s happening in Washington is — quite possibly — one of the most important issues the Iron Range has ever faced.

In December 2016, a little more than a month before it was phased out, the Obama administration took unparalleled steps on two actions that could stunt growth in the region. In one action, the administration denied leases to Twin Metals and its potential underground copper-nickel mine near Ely and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. In the second, it placed a two-year moratorium on mining for 234,000 acres of land in the Superior National Forest near the BWCAW, with the intent of studying industrial impacts on the watershed and consider a 20-year ban on those activities.

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http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

ST. PAUL — Minnesota leaders hope a lease they are offering to a new mining company will reverse a decade of frustrating failure in one area they felt held lots of promise.

Officials who feel they were burned by Essar Steel Minnesota, which did not fulfill state taconite mining requirements, then declared bankruptcy, on Monday, June 19, folded what they hope are iron-clad guarantees into a new mineral lease. They hope the new mining company will produce taconite and turn it into an in-demand iron product where Essar Steel failed for years.

Also Monday, it appeared the White House is on the cusp of a major decision about whether to impose new restrictions on steel imports, a choice that has divided President Donald Trump’s administration while sparking global fears about a burgeoning trade war. Steel imports have been blamed for recent years’ economic woes on northeast Minnesota’s Iron Range, where taconite is told to produce steel elsewhere.

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http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Chippewa Capital Partners has reached an agreement with Gov. Mark Dayton over mineral leases at the former Essar Steel Minnesota project in Nashwauk, removing one of the last obstacles to a bankruptcy settlement approved this morning in Delaware.

The agreement allows Chippewa — a joint venture of London steel and energy conglomerate GFG Alliance and Roanoke, Va., billionaire Tom Clarke — to take over the bankrupt, half-built taconite iron ore mine and processing center, restart construction and start mining and processing ore by 2020.

India-based Essar pumped $1.8 billion into the Nashwauk project over seven years but then walked away in late 2015, out of cash and more than $1 billion in debt, filing for bankruptcy last July.

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