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Minnesota Duluth Complex and Iron Range

PolyMet environmental review decision still months away – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – June 9, 2015)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

State and federal regulators did not meet their goal to have a revised environmental review document on the proposed PolyMet copper mine near Hoyt Lakes completed by early spring, but it should be ready this summer.

A final decision on whether the environmental review, now underway for nearly a decade, is “adequate” is now expected by the end of 2015.

That was the word this week from Tom Landwehr, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, who said state and federal regulatory agencies are “very close” to making the document available to other agencies and, under open records laws, to the public.

The DNR, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Forest Service have been poring over 58,000 public comments made on the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement that went public in 2013.

It was by far the most comments ever received on a project in Minnesota, and in some cases the issues raised required the agencies, consultants and PolyMet to rerun computer models and make other technical changes in the proposal.

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State of Minnesota lowers mineral royalty for U.S. Steel – by John Myers Duluth News Tribune – June 3, 2015)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Minnesota’s top elected officials voted unanimously Wednesday to cut the fees the state charges U.S. Steel Corp. to mine iron ore on state lands on the Iron Range.

The vote is an effort to help the big U.S. steelmaker navigate through tough economic times pushed by a flood of cheap foreign steel and iron ore.

The Executive Council—the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor and attorney general—voted to cut the royalty rates for U.S. Steel operations for 15 months, a break that could hit more than $4 million.

Royalties are the fees mining companies pay to whoever owns the mineral rights where they mine, in this case, the state of Minnesota.

The move means less money coming in to the state’s Permanent School Trust Fund and other funds stocked by the mining fees.

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Finding Minnesota: The ‘Grand Canyon Of The North’ – by Mike Binkley (CBS Minnesota – May 31, 2015)

 

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/

HIBBING, Minn. (WCCO) – This year, thousands will take a side trip to a giant hole in the ground in northern Minnesota that locals like to call “the Grand Canyon of the North.”

It’s not a natural wonder. It’s a panoramic collection of cliffs, ridges and valleys that have all been carved up by humans. The Hull Rust Mahoning Mine on the edge of Hibbing is the second largest open pit iron ore mine in the world.

Beauty was not the main objective when miners first arrived there in the 1890s, but after 120 years of blasting, digging and hauling, beauty is what many visitors see. Anne Varda, whose family includes three generations of miners, is now president of the adjacent tourist center.

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The History of Erie Mining Company (Hometownfocus.us – May 29, 2015)

http://www.hometownfocus.us/

A project to document the history of the pioneering research, preliminary pilot plant, and construction and operation of the world’s first completely integrated taconite mine.

In early 2014, a team of willing and dedicated former Erie Mining Company/ LTV Mining employees began meeting monthly at the Hoyt Lakes City Hall. The team set as its purpose to document the initial development of Minnesota’s taconite Industry by preparing a history of the pioneering research, construction and operation of Erie Mining Company and the establishment of the town site of Hoyt Lakes.

Partnering with the St. Louis County Historical Society, the group established a goal of publishing a quality book, containing both the technical and pictorial history of the mine, plant site, railroad, power plant and harbor, town sites of Hoyt Lakes, Taconite Harbor, and Murphy City as well as the personal stories and experiences of the employees, contractors, vendors, and “town folk” who built and operated one of the world’s largest and most innovative green field mining operations, and one of our nation’s largest private capital enterprises of the past century.

The group contacted local historians, the Minnesota Historical Society and others, who confirmed that there are no comprehensive, historically accurate books documenting the history of the Erie Mining Company, or for that matter, any of Minnesota’s taconite mining and processing operations.

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Up North Report: Inside North America’s biggest construction project – by Aaron Brown (Minneapolis Star Tribune – May 25, 2015)

http://www.startribune.com/

Construction is accelerating at the long awaited $1.9 billion Essar Steel Minnesota mine near Nashwauk, while Essar now says it’s optimistic about producing direct reduced iron products here.

In a tour of the Northern Minnesota site on May 21 with Mitch Brunfelt, Essar’s assistant general counsel and director of government and public relations, I took pictures and observed progress at the site of the biggest construction project on the Mesabi Iron Range in a generation.

This is currently the largest greenfield construction project on the continent, and it’s hard to understate the sheer size, commontion, and labor involved. The site produces a steady drone, easily heard from my home eight miles away.

After years of starts and stops, Essar now says it is finally fully financed and has increased its contractor workforce at the site. About 400 workers were on site the day I visited. Brunfelt said they will soon see 600-800 workers on site each day as summer arrives in force.

Essar has officially amended its construction timeline to reflect the realities of the company’s progress. Brunfelt said Essar engineers are now eying production of taconite by late June or July of 2016.

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[Iron] Range Resiliency Tested Again: WE WILL PERSEVERE – by Bill Hanna (Mesabi Daily News – May 23, 2015)

http://www.virginiamn.com/

Resilient — adjective.

1. Springing back; rebounding.

2. Recovering readily from adversity or the like.

The word resilient definitely defines a strong quality of the Iron Range, its people and our No. 1 industry of mining.

The Range has had to bounce back several times from economic difficulties associated with the ore and steel industries. And we have done so repeatedly through hard work, innovation and a never-give-up attitude.

The Range’s resiliency is now being tested once again because of a downturn in the ore and steel industries brought on in a major way by illegally subsidized steel that has flooded the U.S. market and a glut of iron ore that has lowered prices for the resource.

These certainly are some tough times for mining on the Iron Range. But, once again, the resolve of the companies and people who flip the switch of the industry to make it go will persevere.

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A note on the historical accuracy of this [Iron Range] novel – by Megan Marsnik (Minneapolis Star Tribune – May 20, 2015)

http://www.startribune.com/

“Under Ground” is a work of fiction based on actual events that occurred in northern Minnesota during the tumultuous iron mining strike of 1916.

All of the local characters are fictional. Although some were inspired by actual Iron Range natives, their lives and words as portrayed in this novel are imagined, placed in historical context of the times. For example, fictional character Milo Blatnik was inspired by two miners: Joe Greeni and John Alar. On June 2, 1916, Greeni led the strike walkout at the St. James mine and was followed by more than 20,000 men.

On June 22, Alar, a husband and father of three, was fatally shot in the yard of his Hibbing home as picketers marched nearby. As with the fictional character Milo, Alar’s funeral procession followed a black banner that read “Murdered by Oliver Gunmen,” photographs of which are available at the Iron Range Research Center in Chisholm, Minn. Thousands attended and his death marked a turning point in the uprising.

The “What we want is more pork chops” speech delivered in the novel by fictional character Andre Kristeva was a real speech delivered June 22, 1916, by mining clerical worker George Andreytchine.

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Essar ramps up construction [Iron Range] – by Beth Bily (Business North.com – May 8, 2015)

http://www.businessnorth.com/news.asp

The business news source for Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin.

While recent news about price, demand and employment hasn’t been favorable for Iron Range mining operations, the largest mining construction project here during this century is nonetheless moving ahead, executives say.

Essar Steel Minnesota, a $1.9 billion project located north of Nashwauk on the former Butler mining site, is ramping up for a summer of large-scale activity with the goal of completing construction on the taconite mine by the end of this year. It’s permitted to produce 7 million tons of taconite pellets annually and is expected to operate for approximately 80 years.

Reestablishing mining operations here has been decades in the making. Butler ceased production at the site in the mid-1980s. Later, various would-be developers announced plans to reopen the site to mining. But for years, the plans never made it off the drawing board. That changed in 2007, when India-based Essar purchased what was formerly known as Minnesota Steel Industries.

At a ground breaking for Essar Steel Minnesota in 2008, executives then promised a mining operation that would be up and running within 27 months.

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Iron Range slump appears set to last for a long time – by Lee Schafer (Minneapolis Star Tribune – April 23, 2015)

http://www.startribune.com/

A U.S. Steel spokesman last week emphasized the “temporary” nature of the idling coming at the company’s Keetac and Minntac operations in northeastern Minnesota.

But in looking around at the global industry, it’s shaping up as another of those slumps that sure won’t feel temporary when it’s done. It’s a global industry, and the news is bad all over.

Down in the Indian state of Goa, for example, an export industry that three years ago employed more than 100,000 may never come back. The government put it on hold for environmental reasons, and when it permitted mining to start up again this year there was no more market. Barge captains there can’t even sell their rusting hulks for scrap.

Over in western Australia, a leading market analyst last month asked for one of the iron mining companies to do the decent thing and go out of business. His other hope was that producers finally get serious about forming some sort of cartel to get a production cap, boosting prices. Financial analysts don’t usually openly call for price-fixing and collusion.

The pain isn’t just confined to ore, of course, because it’s just an input for making steel. In a recent steel industry report put out by the big Canadian bank BMO, none of the trend lines were heading up.

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With mine layoffs coming, Iron Rangers prepare for hard times – by Dan Kraker (Minnesota Public Radio News – April 22, 2015)

http://www.mprnews.org/

The Iron Range – Every year, Doug Ellis sells hundreds of pairs of expensive steel-toed boots to miners, and a lot of hunting rifles.

“My business is built on mining money,” said Ellis, who owns the Virginia Surplus sporting goods store. “It’s what drives all these towns.” Ellis has operated the store in Virginia for 25 years, through three downturns in the mining industry.

People on the Iron Range are used to the booms and busts of the cyclical mining industry. But the latest downturn has Ellis and many others worried. They’re bracing for the impending layoffs of 1,100 mineworkers later this spring. The job losses likely will significantly affect a regional economy that relies heavily on mining.

The loss of 1,100 jobs on the Iron Range might not seem like much compared to the 3,100 jobs that Target eliminated in the Twin Cities last month.

But in a region where mining makes up about 30 percent of the economy, the impact of the layoffs is enormous, said John Arbogast, vice president of the United Steelworkers union Local 1938 at Minntac in Mountain Iron. “On the Iron Range, mining is everything,” Arbogast said.

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PolyMet CEO: Copper can help Iron Range diversify – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – April 15, 2015)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

You could understand why the mood might be dour at the annual Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration conference in Duluth this week. With the price of iron ore less than half what it was when last year’s conference was held, layoffs rampant and foreign steel flooding the U.S.economy, the 600 or more regional mining industry folks gathered here weren’t exactly whooping it up.

But Jon Cherry, president and chief executive officer of PolyMet Minerals, said copper may be the balm that soothes what ails northern Minnesota’s mining industry.

Iron ore that sold for $180 per ton in 2011 and $100 one year ago now is going for about $47. And while Cherry said he understands his brothers and sisters in the iron ore mining industry are facing “difficult challenges” with predictions of sub-$40-per-ton iron ore prices, he was happy to proclaim that “these are exciting times for PolyMet” and copper in Minnesota.

Cherry, the conference’s closing plenary speaker, said his company is projecting that both global supply and demand for copper will remain relatively stable through 2017 before both start to increase. In the meantime, he predicts stable prices, and nothing like the free-fall of iron ore prices, on the horizon for copper.

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McCollum seeks ban on new mines in much of northeastern Minnesota – by Devin Henry (Minnesota Post – April 14, 2015)

https://www.minnpost.com/

WASHINGTON — When it comes to controversial mining projects in Minnesota, the headlines go to PolyMet, the proposed copper-nickel mine near Hoyt Lakes that became a touchstone in last year’s elections.

But one group of Minnesotans is taking on a bigger foe — and a bigger mine — miles to the north, and they have found an ally in the state’s congressional delegation.

A group called the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters is working to convince the Obama administration, and eventually Congress, to take steps to block the proposed Twin Metals project, and indeed any precious metal mining in a vast swatch around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The group’s director, Becky Rom, was in Washington last month with a group of scientists and a stack of environmental studies, polling data, and economic reports meeting with administrators and members of Congress. Her message: the watershed surrounding the Boundary Waters is territory too precious to allow copper and nickel mining projects that present a set of environmental complications unique to the area.

Congress has previously protected thousands of acres of land surrounding the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park from mining interests, and the Obama administration has the right to do the same on its own, at least temporarily.

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Analysis: Booming economy can’t help iron ore, steel – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – April 5, 2015)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

When Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith met with some of the hundreds of Iron Range Steelworkers who received layoff notices last week, she said the stress was evident on their faces.

“The older ones, who have been through this cycle before, really had this look of fatigue, like ‘here we go again,’ ” Smith told the News Tribune. “With some of the younger ones, there was more fear. We’re telling them we’re going to bring everything we can to help them. But mostly there’s just so much uncertainty. No one knows how long this is going to last.”

Those in attendance were among nearly 1,200 taconite industry workers who will be out of a job by June. Minnesota’s Iron Range and its mining industry are facing the most layoffs they’ve seen since 2009 thanks to an industry-crippling international trade problem that seems to be getting worse.

The prices of both finished steel and its main raw material, iron ore, are in a free fall thanks to a huge global oversupply. Similar Iron Range downturns in the early 1980s, in 2000-01 and again in 2009 all came as part of national and even global recessions.

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Steel ‘dumping’ blamed for Iron Range layoffs – Jon Collins (Minnesota Public Radio – April 1, 2015)

http://www.mprnews.org/

Politicians and mining company officials are blaming unfair foreign competition for more than a thousand recent layoffs in the state’s iron ore industry.

U.S. Steel announced Tuesday that it would idle part of its taconite plant in Mountain Iron, Minn., starting on June 1. Earlier last month U.S. Steel announced plans to idle a plant in Keewatin, which will result in more than 400 layoffs. Magnetation also recently announced that it was closing an Iron Range plant and laying off more than 40 people.

The closing of plants and mills comes from a glut of steel supplies and the steady decline of prices over the last few months.

Following news of the most recent plant closing, Rep. Jason Metsa, DFL-Virginia, blamed the low prices on “foreign countries for dumping state-sibsidized steel on American shores.” U.S. Steel officials have also pointed to illegal trade practices by Chinese companies.

Dumping is a frowned upon international trade practice, said Tony Barrett, a professor of economics at the College of St. Scholastica. It’s when a company sells steel abroad for cheaper than the cost to produce it because they don’t need to make the same level of profits as American steel companies.

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Local View: A single mining job pays a lifetime of dividends – by Kirk D. Haldorson (Duluth News Tribune – April 2, 2015)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

I grew up one of six children here in northern Minnesota, and my father was employed with Reserve Mining in Silver Bay. Growing up in a mining town, I never really thought of mining as anything but a normal, regular industry; and quite possibly I took for granted that it would always be there.

We grew up fishing, camping and swimming in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. We grew up planting trees for the U.S. Forest Service to help fund our college. We would plant as many as 200,000 trees a year and spend endless days enjoying the beautiful forests.

Saying all this, I never would support something such as PolyMet Mining if I thought it would harm our environment. I can honestly say there is no one who loves nature and the wilderness more than me. I feel blessed to see some of the trees I planted so many years ago now being harvested for this generation.

We need to either grow it or mine it if northern Minnesota is going to provide for future generations. My parents raised six children, and all six went on to some sort of higher education — all because of one mining job.

All six children went on to get married, and all six children and their spouses currently live, work and pay state income taxes to Minnesota — all due to one mining job.

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