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| Minnesota's Aaron Brown |
In this blog entry we'll look at the political landscape, including one of the biggest political issues facing the region, the battle between environmentalists and the mining interests as regards copper and other metals. Aaron Browns articulate insights will shed light on why these issues are not black and white.
A link to yesterday's post will be at the end of this one.
EN: The Northland once had a strong CPUSA component. During our Great Depression more than 10,000 people, especially Finns, were persuaded to join the future and go to Stalin’s Russia, primarily deceived by propaganda. How much did that happen here on the Range?
Aaron Brown: Yes, early 20th Century Iron Range mining communities had lots of socialist and some communist activity. And I've heard, more second hand than first, of some who left for Russia after the revolution. These were mostly Finns and they headed for Karelia, the region that borders Finland. There was already a large Finnish population there. Keep in mind, these were mostly people from Finland, who still spoke Finnish as their first language. I can't cite you dates or specifics, but I have heard that it proved to be a very bad decision for those who went. After about a year of living in a socialist utopia, with some American elements like baseball thrown in, Stalin grew wary of the Karelian Finns and threw most of them in the gulags. Some survived but most didn’t. It was a cautionary tale about revolutionary communism. These people who went were true believers in the cause. They didn't anticipate how quickly men like Stalin would consolidate power at the expense of the original ideals of the movement.
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| Humphrey campaigning for presidency, 1968. |
AB: Of course, this is book. I’ll give you a paragraph.
When immigrants came from Europe to America, and then to northern Minnesota to find work, they brought with them many European languages and cultures. Some of them also brought political ideologies like socialism, anarchism, and communism and dozens of strains of all these movements. They were lured to America with promises of political and economic opportunity. When they realized that things here were surprisingly similar to conditions in Europe (and because they were too broke to go back) they set about to enact a democratic version of the same ideals they had been reading about back in Europe. Many who came to the Iron Range were already socialists. But, in time, they joined their own societies and clubs here as well.
The CP-USA was never all that big or important in local politics on the Range, but many immigrants were sympathetic to it. But the peak of socialist thought probably occurred before WWI and the first Red Scare, which caused Range miners to avoid talk of socialism for fear of economic reprisals.
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| Copper miners in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, 1905 |
AB: The chief barrier to copper mining in northern Minnesota is and always has been the cost of production. The general understanding that copper and other elements could be found in the region has been broadly understood for at least 80 years. The problem is that the ore is diffused within a vast amount of overburden and waste rock, requiring significant processing to extract. This has never been commercially viable. Nonferrous mining was seriously explored back in the 1970s with a large amount of political support. But that effort was abandoned because the companies doing the promising could never put the money together.
Some twenty years ago (!) talk of mining nonferrous minerals rose again, this time under the umbrella of PolyMet. In the aftermath of LTV’s closure in Hoyt Lakes there was a sucking void of political hopes and dreams, and this fit the bill. The argument was that by using new technology the company could crack the cost/benefit code to mine this site profitably. Not only that, they purported they could do it cleaner than any other copper mine in the world. Twin Metals joined in some years later promising the same near Ely.
Since then, most of what we hear about is related to the environmental risk of this form of mining. And that’s important, but not for the reasons most people think.
It might appear, for instance, that these mines would be running right now were it not for the obstinance of environmentalists. And it’s true that environmental opposition to these projects has been consistent, coordinated and, at times, effective. You might blame regulatory agencies like the MPCA or EPA for their cumbersome red tape and the piles of legal documents they collect and produce. But most of the longest delays have been related to asking the companies for cost-specific information that was withheld for strategic reasons.
PolyMet and Twin Metals are shell corporations, or what the business calls “junior miners.” There won’t be a PolyMet mine or a Twin Metals mine. Rather, there would be a mine run by a real mining company, probably Glencore and/or Antofagasta, respectively. Companies like these are cutthroat international wheeler-dealers. They won’t come in here with their billion dollars a pop unless they are getting a very good deal. So these junior miners, whose targets are really these big corporations, want to make these mines look as good as possible. That means vague permit language and non-binding promises about labor, production, and environmental impact. They don’t have to lie, they need only create enough gaps in the language for a company like Glencore to tear into vast chasms with their team of lawyers at some point in the future.
That’s why you see them talking about using union labor for construction (because all the local construction companies are union anyway) but not signing a non-compete clause with the United Steelworkers of America to seek to represent the workers in the eventual mines. The prior is an assumed cost, but the latter is something that would cost money down the line.
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| Chalcopyrite from Peru. |
To your question, is there a way to mine Minnesota copper in an environmentally responsible way? The answer is yes, but that it’s very expensive and that efforts to make it less expensive in order to attract investors will lead to it being less environmentally responsible in the long run. The fear isn’t necessarily a large scale disaster while the mine is running — though that’s technically possible — but that the costs of mitigating the mine site after the mine is closed will be placed entirely on the state. Eventually, this would likely negate or even reverse the economic benefits of opening the mine in the first place.
EN: How long have you been writing Minnesota Brown?
AB: I’ve been writing this site since 2006. Prior to that I had used the site as a place to post my weekly newspaper column for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. (I left the Tribune in 2003, but continued to write a column on contract for them. In fact, I still do). But in the fall of 2006 I added the blog component.
EN: Thank you for taking time to share some of the insights you've gained during your life and career on the Range.
Related Links
Karelia: A Finnish-American Couple In Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941
Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range
Minnesota Brown: Modern Life in Northern Minnesota
Dylan Town: Minnesota Brown Talks About Life on the Iron Range and Its History, Past & Present (Part 2)
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