Continued: A renaissance on the Iron Range

The Range went from supporting about 16,000 miners in the late 1970s to about 4,000 today. Populations in cities declined and grew older. Funerals outpaced baptisms. Schools closed and consolidated.

But recently, those once-crippling world market forces have realigned in the Range’s favor. Rapid development in China and India pumped up demand for iron ore and nearly every other mineral, bringing those countries — money in hand — to northeastern Minnesota’s door.

In October, Essar Global Ltd. of India closed on its purchase of Minnesota Steel Industries and reaffirmed plans to break ground early this year on the former Butler site. Essar estimates it will need 2,000 construction workers to build North America’s first fully integrated ore-to-steel processing facility, with projected permanent employment of 700 by 2011.

On the same former LTV property where Mesabi Nugget is building, Polymet Mining Corp. spent more than $40 million proving up a lode of minerals and attempting to prove to state regulators and environmentalists that it can safely lead the Iron Range into a more lucrative vein of mining — for copper, nickel, cobalt and smaller amounts of platinum, palladium and gold.

Geologists have known for decades that such metals exist near that part of the Range, locked within an 800-foot-deep formation called the Duluth Complex. But only recently have technology and rising demand made extraction feasible.

Frank Ongaro, executive director of the nonferrous trade group Mining Minnesota, said the state is suddenly in a position to capitalize on global demand for such metals for use in construction, cell phones and an array of other digital age necessities.

“Right now the United States is 100 percent dependent on imports for nickel, which you need for hybrid-car batteries, wind turbines and medical devices,” Ongaro said. “We have what’s believed to be the third-largest nickel deposit in the world.”

Environmental debate

Environmentalists warn that nonferrous mining will pollute, because the metals are locked within metallic sulfide ore, which, when disturbed, can produce sulfuric acid drainage. The Sierra Club and other groups say sulfide mining has a long history of polluting.

Polymet says there’s little risk of that.

Recent Local + Metro stories

Drunken driver admits 'horrible mistake' in fatal accident - March 2, 2008

Drunken driver admits 'horrible mistake' in fatal accident - "I was driving. I don't know what happened," said Kirsten Driscoll of Minneapolis after entering a guilty plea to criminal vehicular operation in the death of Christopher Iverson, 48. More