Partnerships may pave the way to a more environmentally focused future in the mining industry
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This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
At the end of last year, Cathy Chavers did something historic. It was the first time a Bois Forte Band of Chippewa tribal chair sat down with mining executives. Chavers accepted an invitation from Mesabi Metallics, a taconite processing facility near Nashwauk, to learn for herself about new initiatives aimed at transforming how taconite is extracted.
The meeting was a part of a broader effort that could potentially transform how taconite is extracted by the wider industry.
“There are misconceptions,” said Chavers, who has since stepped down as chair. “We need to know more about the mining industry.”
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Traditionally, industry has relied on a massive amount of energy, adding to the pollution of land and water where tribal members continue to exercise treaty rights, places where they continue to gather wild rice, hunt and fish.
Bois Forte and other tribal nations in the northeast and northcentral part of the state are learning from industry and from researchers they too might benefit from efforts to decarbonize the state’s taconite industry.
Last fall, researchers at the University of Minnesota met tribal leaders at a quarterly meeting of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council. Jamie Alexander and another colleague from the U of M's Natural Resource Research Institute presented their work with the Midwest Industrial Transformation Initiative, or MITI, a research project aimed at reimagining the state’s iron ore industry using renewable energy.
Alexander, who is the director of external engagement and strategy at NRRI, told tribal leaders the initiative is responding to a call from consumers for what they call “green steel”— steel produced with renewable energy, starting with mineral extraction.
For the past several years, tribal leaders and their staff have met regularly with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to provide input on permits issued to mining companies. For decades, Bois Forte, and others, have raised concerns about pollution from wastewater discharged from taconite mines into northern lakes and streams.
Just recently Chavers says Bois Forte had met with the DNR to talk about diminished wild rice stands on another lake, Big Rice Lake, just off the reservation in the tribe's ceded territory.
“It used to be one of the biggest lake producers in our area, and now it's gone. So those types of costs, when we're trying to figure out, you know, what's wrong, it's a shared cost,” Chavers said.
Taconite mining, particularly the processing of iron ore tailings, can release sulfate pollution. Elevated levels of sulfate in the state’s lakes and rivers have been shown to harm wild rice stands.
Chavers learned during her meeting with mining executives at Mesabi Metallics that the company intends to reduce wastewater discharge by treating and recycling the water used during processing — a process that holds promise for reducing sulfate pollution.
Mesabi Metallics CEO Joe Broking says he’s prioritized building relationships with tribal nations.
“One of the very first things that I talked to the team about is what our relationship is like with the tribes in northern Minnesota. Because if we're not active, we should be,” Broking said.
The meeting between a tribal leader and a mining executive was among the first times a tribal nation and industry discussed ways renewable energy could transform land and water use.
How much renewable energy will be needed to reduce carbon emissions?
At Mesabi Metallics workers have placed a small pine tree—what's called a topping tree—on top of a newly constructed building. It’s one of many signs is the mine will begin operations soon.
Mesabi Metallics intends to meet the growing demand for materials processed using renewable energy. Historically, taconite processing has been a heavy polluter because it relies on coal to produce iron ore pellets, a process which emits large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Broking says within a year the company will take its first step in decarbonizing the mine’s operations.
In the near term, Mesabi Metallics will rely on natural gas to reduce emissions until it can transition entirely to hydrogen. The process is what some in the industry call it “green iron.”
So, what makes “green iron” ... green?
To reduce carbon emissions, Broking says the company intends to transition to hydrogen fuel—a much cleaner process that requires separating water molecules to produce hydrogen gas. When using wind or solar energy, the process produces a renewable or “green” hydrogen.
“We can actually take iron ore, eliminate coal from the equation, combine that with hydrogen gas, put that into a DR reactor to make what we call direct reduced iron,” said Broking during a recent tour of the new processing facility.
As Mesabi Metallics attempts to meet the demands for clean energy products, the University of Minnesota is set to begin a study to understand how much renewable energy will be needed in Minnesota to start processing taconite using hydrogen industry wide.
‘How it pencils out with the economics and the impacts’
Mesabi Metallics and other taconite companies are set to get a boost from the U of M researchers looking to transform the state’s economy while polluting less.
At a U of M lab in Coleraine, Rolf Weberg and a team of researchers with the Natural Resources Research Institute are partnering with U.S. Steel and a half dozen other labs to conduct a feasibility study as a part of the Midwest Industrial Transformation Initiative.
Weberg’s team has received several million dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct the study.
“How are we going to make decisions so that Minnesota Iron is relevant to the national steel industry. We're to provide a globally competitive product, both iron and steel, that really helps the regional, global economy move forward,” Weberg said.
The state’s taconite mines provide more than eighty-five percent of the iron for the domestic steel industry, according to Weberg.
University researchers will look at how much renewable energy is required to bring value-added steel manufacturing to Minnesota — what Weberg calls “next generation steel.”
The study is a first step in constructing an energy plant large enough to meet demand, according to Weberg. The hope is to build a 1-gigawatt renewable plant on the Iron Range.
“How do we make good decisions? How do we evaluate the impacts of these decisions? And it’s all going to come down to how it pencils out with the economics and the impacts,” said Weberg.
The funding for the initiative is under review by the Trump administration. Weberg says he is confident the initiative will receive federal funding.
“Having a national security focus on a robust, well run next generation iron and steel industry for the country is a key focus of ours,” Weberg said.
A ‘once in a many generations opportunity’
Labor and tribal relations may be as much a part of the definition of “next generation” steelmaking as the science and technology used to produce it, according to Alexander.
The idea for MITI’s study came from a community-based organization in Duluth looking at ways to increase energy efficiency and resilience across the northeast part of the state, says Alexander.
She says the study is a ‘once in a many generations opportunity’ to reinvent one of America's bedrock industries.
“Let's take that opportunity to reinvent it across the board,” Alexander said.
The study will work closely with communities who have historically been affected by the taconite industry’s boom and bust cycles.
“We think there's an incredible opportunity for new, good paying jobs that are in new industries. In addition to the typical mining industry, we actually are looking at higher producing, higher value iron products,” Alexander said.
A plant large enough to power a new “green iron” processing facility or ‘next generation’ steel manufacturing might prove to be an economic opportunity for tribal nations located in the northeast.
“We will require more forms of energy coming from communities, coming from tribes, who can then own those renewable energy assets and benefit from them,” Alexander said.
Alexander says she’s in conversation with tribal leaders in the northeast part of the state to invite more participation around issues of clean water.
“We've been intentionally engaging across that spectrum of that tension between mining and water,” said Alexander. “We're sure to hear from people who are primarily concerned about the health of our waterways, as well as those who are advocating for the jobs of those in the mining industry.”