AP reported that, for the first time in nearly 25 years, the Itasca County town of Nashwauk has been rattled by explosions this summer. That's not unusual in northeast Minnesota's iron mining country, but in Nashwauk, the sound has been a long time in coming.
After more than a decade of planning, blasting is a first step toward Essar Steel's huge project that will combine an iron mine, taconite pellet plant and steel mill. The work delights area residents eager for new jobs, but worries nearby homeowners concerned about dust and light.
Demolition crews are blasting through 400,000 cubic yards of rock to make room for the USD 1.6 billion Essar Minnesota plant, one of the most expensive in Minnesota history. Building fabrication work could begin late this year, and continue in earnest through 2011.
Crews will be erecting structures where mined rocks will be ground and separated into a high iron concentrate. Farther east, another 100,000 tonnes of bedrock will be blasted for Minnesota's newest taconite plant, where the concentrate will be formed and cooked into dark, marble sized pellets.
A couple of years later, two more plants begin operations. One will create a high iron feed for steel making called direct reduced iron, or DRI. The other will be a steel mill the first in northeast Minnesota mining country.
Mr Kevin Kangas director of health, safety and environment at Essar Steel said that the project already, which has created about 100 construction jobs this year, will create thousands next year. Next year is going to be a big year for us, hoping to get our buildings up.
Nashwauk, which had 1,400 residents when Butler Tac was operating, now has a population of less than 1,000. The strain shows. The town's downtown is a mix of ongoing businesses and empty shells. For a couple of yeas, a fire-blackened service station has greeted visitors from Highway 169.
Mr Kangas said that company officials have taken steps to minimize the project's impact on neighbors like the Wrights. They're still considering how to keep noise down and bright lights away once 24 hour a day production begins.
Essar has proposed several changes that will allow them to produce additional taconite pellets for the company's steel mill in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario. It also has proposed other modifications to the project like bigger mining trucks and a larger taconite pellet furnace. That would increase air emissions, but company officials think they can keep mercury and nitrogen oxide levels at or below what's already permitted.
(Sourced Associated Press)
