Minnesota's future must make room for mining

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. (To contribute, click here.) This article is a response to Star Tribune Opinion's June 4 call for submissions on the question: "Where does Minnesota go from here?" Read the full collection of responses here.

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Speaking of the future of Minnesota, let's talk about mining.

(An audible gasp goes through the crowd.)

When I was but a lad, we would sit and watch something called the "Saturday Night Movie," which was uninterrupted by commercials except for broadcast newsman Earl Henton at the very beginning doing a five minute advertorial about Minnesota's iron mining industry. He would show us big trucks and shovels and the deep open pit mines stretching out endlessly in the distance. Henton would conclude that the state's Iron Range was "producing and providing."

In the early 1960s, voters across the state got on board with creating a friendly tax climate for the emerging taconite industry to help the Range transition seamlessly from mining the disappearing high grade ore to the plentiful low-grade taconite ore. The "taconite amendment" was approved by a 7-1 margin.

And, of course, we were taught in school back in the day how Minnesota's iron ranges had supplied the raw material to propel America through the industrial revolution and two world wars.

I moved to Hibbing in 1975 and stayed there for 21 years as the newspaper editor. My education in mining accelerated, concerning not only the technology, but also how mining is woven into the lives of every Ranger. There is only one reason for that string of Minnesota towns veering northeast from Grand Rapids almost to Lake Superior. There's only one reason that 80,000 people make their lives there. That reason is mining.

The jobs were well-paid and the benefits were all-world. The mines were the basis of a strong regional economy.

Mining is what the people of the Range know, what they are really good at, and if there is a future for the Range, it will rely heavily on mining.

But something has happened in the last few decades. Instead of retaining a warm fuzzy feeling about mining, Minnesotans have become wary, questioning or deeply opposed to mining of any sort. Perhaps that's to be expected in a blue state where environmentalism and tribal rights are influential.

But what I want to say is that as we look to the future of Minnesota, we must not forget about or disparage mining.

I have faith that our state and federal regulatory agencies can make this kind of mining safe. There have been plenty of bad examples to learn from.

The problem is a very serious anti-mining attitude that has developed in Minnesota, and even across the nation. The nickel projects can't seem to get any traction because they're pushing too hard upstream. People who use computers, drive electric cars and keep things cool in refrigerators would like never to see another shovel driven into the ground in Minnesota to dig out the ore these technologies depend on.

Apparently, instead of an industry paying great wages and making northern Minnesota a viable place to live, they would rather see the U.S. meet its mining needs in places where it's done by 14-year-olds at slave wages.

And then there's the national security hazard of depending on critical minerals from foreign sources.

And one more thing — a challenge to the mining companies: After the iron ore downturn in the 1980s, the mining companies made a decision to pull back much of their professional, engineering and planning staff back to the home bases out east. Hundreds of highly paid, highly skilled jobs left the Range. It was a brain drain.

Minnesota's future? Part of it should be in mining. Or as the bumper stickers used to say: "Mining. It's in everybody's future."