Large crowd turns out in Duluth to hear PolyMet, DNR talk mining

Posted at 3:41 PM on May 3, 2012 by Michael Olson (0 Comments)
Filed under: Arrowhead, mining

Trucks and a drill rig drill into the ground near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Thursday morning near Ely, Minn. The trucks were doing exploratory drilling for Duluth Metals. (MPR Photo/Derek Montgomery)

The Duluth McCabe Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America hosted a forum Wednesday about proposed copper mining in Northeastern Minnesota. A crowd of about 200 people attended the forum which included Brad Moore, a vice president for PolyMet Mining. Co.; and Larry Kramka, director of the Lands and Minerals Division of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

MPR News Primer: Copper-nickel mining
Mining runs deep in the culture and economy of northern Minnesota. So why are people drawing battle lines over plans to build copper-nickel mines in the Iron Range? It's a new kind of mining for Minnesota and there are plenty of potential rewards -- and risks. Can a middle ground be found between economic, environmental and quality of life concerns? More

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On Iron Range, plans progress to move a highway

Posted at 2:58 PM on March 9, 2012 by Dan Kraker (0 Comments)
Filed under: Arrowhead, Roads, mining

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has narrowed down its options to relocate a mile-long section of Highway 53 between Virginia and Eveleth, including a route costing upwards of $60 million that would steer motorists over a new bridge spanning high across an abandoned mining pit.

MnDOT has released a large scoping document laying out four alternative options for the new highway route. The public has until April 4 to comment on the document. A public meeting will be held March 27 from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Mountain Iron Community Center.

For over fifty years, the state has operated a short stretch of highway just south of Virginia on an easement granted by US Steel (now RGGS Land and Minerals Co.). But nearly two years ago, United Taconite, which is owned by the giant mining company Cliffs Natural Resources, told the state it intended to mine iron ore located underneath the highway that it owns the rights to, near the Mineview in the Sky overlook.

Minnesota does have the option to purchase the rights to the iron ore underneath the highway. But with an estimated price tag of $400 to $600 million dollars, that's a longshot. More likely is one of two proposed realignments: one that would traverse part of the Auburn Pit, an area that's been mined out of iron ore; or another that would travel around an old water-filled mine called the Rouchleau Pit. That option is estimated to cost up to $85 million.

Several Iron Range lawmakers like DFL Rep. Tom Rukavina of Virginia have long favored the route over the Auburn Pit. Last year Rukavina said if that route's approved "people are going to be driving right through our own Grand Canyon of the north."

It will stil be several years before drivers enjoy a new view, wherever it is. MnDOT isn't required to have the new highway finished until the spring of 2017.

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Quarry plan faces more hurdles

Posted at 2:53 PM on February 17, 2012 by Mark Steil (0 Comments)
Filed under: Rivers and streams, Southwest Minnesota, mining

(Photo courtesy of Anne Queenan)

A disputed plan to quarry granite along the Minnesota River in the western part of the state has moved a step forward. But it may also face a significant new hurdle.

The North Dakota-based Strata Corporation wants to mine the stone for use as aggregate in road construction and other projects. The Big Stone County Planning Commission Thursday evening recommended that the full county board approve the idea, if certain conditions are meet.

Darren Wilke, a county environmental officer, said the vote was 5-3 to recommend in favor of the project. But the planning commission also recommended that the county board require the company to address about a dozen environmental concerns connected to the project, for dust, noise, water quality and other issues.

Quarry opponents say it would cause irreversible damage to a scenic leg of the Upper Minnesota River near Ortonville, Minn. They're concerned the operation would harm wild animal and plant life in the area, lower property values and damage the region's tourism potential.

And there's another potential roadblock for the project. The Ortonville Township Board has passed a moratorium on new projects like the proposed quarry. The township plans to set up its own planning and zoning commission which would have to approve Strata's plans. Strata officials say they are reviewing the township action.

Several other agencies also must sign-off on the project, including the state Department of Natural Resources, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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(A Prairie) Home on the Range...

Posted at 3:06 PM on October 13, 2011 by Dan Kraker (0 Comments)
Filed under: Around MN, Arrowhead, Arts, mining

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" old-time variety radio show has helped make Lake Wobegon famous. A new public radio show debuting this Saturday hopes to bring the same kind of storytelling, humor and music home to the Iron Range.

The "Great Northern Radio Show" premiers on KAXE in Grand Rapids. It will be hosted and produced by Balsam Township author and well-known blogger Aaron Brown, who writes about Iron Range politics and culture. Brown says the show's format borrows from A Prairie Home Companion, with one very important geographic distinction.

"Everything we do is focused a little north of Lake Wobgeone," he explains. Think lumberjacks and miners rather than bachelor farmers.

Brown says the show will also incorporate "interviews and feature journalism" that will be woven in with music, comedic sketches and a radio drama -- "blended gently like vegetable shavings into a cake." Brown says that aspect of the show borrows from another one of public radio's flagship programs, "This American Life."

On the first show, titled "Hard Time Good Times," Brown will interview a Range meteorologoist and tornado chaser, philosophy students from Hibbing Community College, and a woman who swims the Iron Range's abandoned mining pits. Storyteller Ed Nelson from the Grand Rapids Forest History Center will spin a new yarn about the old Range.

Brown says in some ways Iron Range communities are similar to "Lake Wobegone" or other Midwestern small towns. There are no secrets, he explains, and your past always follows you around wherever you go. But on the Range, he says, there's "so much more open conflict and friction, that's produced a little bit edgier cultural element than you see in traditional Midwestern lore."

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A grand bridge to Virginia

Posted at 12:00 PM on March 16, 2011 by Bob Kelleher (1 Comments)
Filed under: Arrowhead, Roads, mining

This is a view of the United Taconite taconite mine at Eveleth. Much of the landscape surrounding Eveleth has been altered by decades of mining. Under a new plan, that landscape will be altered yet again.

Imagine: a beautiful, high, four-lane bridge spanning an Iron Range taconite mine on the way to the city of Virginia. That's one option for moving Highway 53, which has to go to make room for taconite mining. And it's the option area State Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, wants to see.

State transportation officials are holding meetings to offer Virginia area residents various options to move this busy route. Cliff's Natural Resources United Taconite Company of Eveleth, and RGGS Land and Minerals, hold mineral rights to the iron under the highway, and they've sent notice they intend to mine it.

The current highway is a divided four-lane affair that takes traffic from Duluth up to Virginia and eventually, as a two-lane road, all the way to International Falls.

But business tends to drift to the nearest busy highway, and that's certainly the case in Virginia, where Highway 53 now rolls within a busy business corridor including a major local grocery store, hotels, restaurants and the city's shopping mall.

It's one thing to move the highway -- and no little thing that -- but quite another to return traffic to the retail area, or somehow move businesses to the traffic.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has offered more than half a dozen alternative routes for Highway 53. One would take it west, completely around the other side of Eveleth before rejoining its current route somewhere in Virginia. Another goes east, around Virginia on its other side.

There's also an option to leave it in place and purchase the mineral rights. But transportation officials say that iron ore is worth so much it's cheaper to move the four-lane highway, despite the $60-million estimated cost.

Then there are the direct routes.Two options would just move the road a little chink to the left for a couple of miles -- rejoining the current route before most of the businesses. Both routes would go right through United Taconite's "Thunderbird" mining operation. Logically, the road would rise on a bridge over the mine -- a spectacular view of the mine's Auburn pit, one of Minnesota's man-made taconite canyons.

Rukavina isn't interested in a ponderous decision. He and three area legislators have introduced a bill to speed up the process and limit the options to those last two, the routes through today's mining area.

As he told the Duluth News Tribune "people are going to be driving right through our own Grand Canyon of the north." The bill requires a decision by mid-March 2015 to allow construction to begin by that June.

The bill was filed March 7th and so far has gone to the House Transportation Policy and Finance Committee. State Sen. Dave Tomassoni,(DFL-Chisolm, has filed a companion bill in the Senate.

And you know what? It sounds like a practical solution to a thorny problem. Bring on the bridge. It's a nice drive now, although lacking much to look at beyond endless trees. A little bit of Grand Canyon would be a terrific addition.

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Should regulators judge PolyMet on Glencore's record?

Posted at 1:25 PM on March 2, 2011 by Bob Kelleher (4 Comments)
Filed under: Arrowhead, mining

An environmental group has asked Minnesota regulators to take a hard look at the privately held international organization behind PolyMet Mining Corporation before approving any permits for its planned sulfide mining operation.

PolyMet Mining is perhaps a year away from obtaining the permits to open Minnesota's first sulfide mine for copper, nickel, and precious metals like platinum, palladium, and gold from an ore body near Hoyt Lakes and Babbitt, Minn.

PolyMet has gotten this far with financial backing from Glencore International AG -- the target of some vehement criticism on several continents. Glencore is transforming itself into a publicly traded company.

The environmental organization WaterLegacy and environmental attorney Paula Maccabee have been looking at Glencore's record. Maccabee doesn't like what she sees, and she doesn't mince words talking about it.

"We discovered to our chagrin that Glencore, the important financial partner of the PolyMet mine, has had the reputation of being the worst corporation on the globe," Maccabee said. "We learned that the problems were economic, worker related problems, environmental harm, and in the case of a plant in France, the extraction of Glencore of the financial resources from its subsidiary, leaving a liability that the French government estimated at $400 million."

The report describes serious problems with the Mopani copper mine in Zambia, Africa, 73 percent of which is owned by a Glencore subsidiary. According to the report, 71 miners lost their lives at that operation in 2005. The report also provides some details of serious environmental degradation from a pipe rupture and an acid spill there. It notes that mine lost 1,000 jobs in 2008 and 2009 as copper prices fluctuated.

The report also finds environmental degradation in northern Colombia coal mines operated by Glencore subsidiaries.

All this mean should prompt additional scrutiny for PolyMet's proposed Minnesota project.

"Among the questions regulators need to be asking," Mccabee said, "is how is the financial assurance going to be provided for PolyMet? What is the role that Glencore International is going to play? Are its deep pockets going to be available for financial assurance, and what degree of control is Glencore International, with its spotty track record, going to have over the prospects and the practices of that future mine?"

Brad Moore, PolyMet Executive Vice President for Environment and Government Relations, said Glencore's control of the project will be minimal. Glencore is a minority partner in PolyMet and even if Glencore cashes in stock options it now holds, it's still a minority partner, he said.

Moore also said Glencore's record is irrelevant.

"Glencore is an investor," Moore said. "PolyMet is a company that will get the permits, and also will be the company that is responsible for the financial assurance under the laws of the State of Minnesota, and as a result, the mine that will be operated and permitted here in Minnesota has to conform to our laws and our regulators."

Moore, former commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said Minnesota law and Minnesota regulators provide the assurance of a clean mine operation.

"When the mine is actually developed and operated, adequate financial assurance must be in place, regardless of ownership," said Moore, also former assistant commissioner for operations of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "And the regulatory authorities in Minnesota will ensure that."

Details of PolyMet's financial assurance won't be completed until the permitting process is underway, Moore said. That follows the environmental review process which is now underway. A supplemental draft environmental impact statement on the project is expected late this spring or this summer.

Moore said PolyMet won't be able to line up financial assurances from investors until the environmental review is complete.

That's small comfort to Maccabee.

"What we're saying is not only PolyMet's scant resources, but the resources and practices of Glencore International, its huge capital partner, have to be investigated," Maccabee said.

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Amazing Magnetation mining

Posted at 1:34 PM on January 7, 2011 by Bob Kelleher (2 Comments)
Filed under: Arrowhead, mining

We learned this week that an upstart Iron Range company, Magnetation, will push its iron recovery technology worldwide through international giant Cargill .

Magnetation is one of the more amazing stories coming out of Minnesota's Iron Range, a mining region that often produces rags rather than riches stories.

The company is using its patented technology, the Rev3 Separator, to recover marketable iron concentrate from old waste piles -- the stuff just left behind from northeast Minnesota's long natural iron mining industry. It's so promising that the people at Cargill's iron division, Cargill Ferrous International, recognize its worldwide potential -- enough to make an undisclosed investment into a partnership plan to explore how the process might be applied elsewhere.

Magnetation's heroes include long time Iron Range mining engineer Al Fritz, who came up with the process that apparently uses a lot of water and a big wheel to pull iron from not very magnetic hematite.

Larry Lehtinen is the company's CEO. Lehtinen's resume includes his part starting up Mesabi-Nugget, a partnership between Japan's Kobe Steel and lead partner Steel Dynamics Inc. in a new plant hear Hoyt Lakes, that company is producing iron nuggets with much higher iron concentration than today's taconite pellets.

Magnetation just inked an agreement to send concentrate by train from the Iron Range to a Mexican steel producer. When up and running, it will send 120 car unit trains of ore on a 1,500-mile journey to Mexico steel producer AHMSA. Even at that distance, Magentation can compete with ore from South America.

In fact, Lehtinen has said, Magnetation is the nation's lowest cost iron concentrate producer; beating out the taconite companies and rivals like Mesabi Nugget.

When founded a couple of years ago, Magnetation was envisioned as a warm weather producer that would work old waste piles in the sunnier seasons. Instead, the company put up a big bubble dome over the work site to allow year-round operations.

Magnetation has so far been working the old Mesabi-Chief Mine near Keewatin, turning out 160,000 metric tons a year.

While company officials haven't revealed terms of their deal with Cargill, they say they'll now be able to expand that operation to full production around 450,000 tons a year; and begin work on a second site, near the town of Taconite; which will help the combined operations approach one million tons a year.

There's so much recoverable ore laying around in waste piles, it could take 50 years to thin it out.

When done reprocessing waste piles, Magnetation plans to leave behind wetlands, that the company will be able to sell. Many companies need to purchase wetlands to mitigate wetland acres lost to new developments.

It's a good time to implement new ways to mine. Iron ore that sold for about $30 a ton in 2001, now trades at about $170 dollar a ton, according to Metal Bulletin Research's Iron Ore Index.

So, don't be surprised to see a bunch of Magnetation operations up north in the coming years, and quite possibly world-wide.

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