In any relationship it’s always good to find and focus on the matters on which you agree with the other party. Even if you fear that the other party and you don’t agree on much.
It was with this spirit that I watched a feature by one of the Twin Cities TV stations about the endless disagreement in our area about mining. It seemed the reporter was attempting to balance the piece as he interviewed the head of Ely’s Twin Metals operation, Dean DeBeltz, and my Memorial High classmate Becky Rom.
I visited with DeBeltz once in a quite convivial setting and was not surprised that I agreed with his responses to the reporter’s questions. However, I was quite surprised that I agree heartily with two items Ms. Rom spoke about.
Number One she declared that she was not opposed to mining.
Neither am I. In fact, I am so not opposed that I wrote and recorded a song called “Stains of Toil” honoring the underground miners of Ely and by extension such miners everywhere. You can hear and view the music video here on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=-PbE4ZAcCwo Or you can find it on YouTube by searching for “Ely Miners Memorial.”
The song was inspired by my dad who worked underground at Pioneer Mine in Ely for 37 years before finishing his mining career at Reserve Mining in Babbitt with 10 more years. My grampa Frank and five uncles were also miners.
I also produced three other music videos on the topic of mining so you can see how gratified I was to learn that Rom shared my respect for and understanding of the importance of mining. I’m sure she understands the impact on a community’s economy when mining stops as it did just two months before she, our classmates, and I graduated in 1967.
Equally surprising was point Number Two when Rom stated that there are appropriate places (and, by implication, inappropriate places) to mine. I agree again. But the harmonious agreement in this logical chain ended there.
Her view of an inappropriate place to mine is five miles south and a mile below the surface of the nearest point of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. My idea of an appropriate place to mine is where there are minerals that you seek.
Excuse the flippancy here but one can create a wilderness preserve anywhere the voters will let you -- that’s how the BWCA got to be where it is. It could just as well have been created in Hennepin County. That would have required an applicable name and the removal of some businesses, as was done in the BWCA, most notably on Basswood Lake.
But it’s axiomatic that mining can only be successful if you mine where minerals are found.
It’s fortunate, therefore, that it’s not necessary to remove the IDS building, Target Field, the University of Minnesota, and light rail tracks to relocate Minnesota’s wilderness preserve. We can leave it right where it is --outside of the multiple use area of the Superior National Forest in northeast Minnesota and continue to limit access.
What’s this talk about relocating the BWCA? Of course that’s inane. The area on which the wilderness was created has special properties.
And so does the area outside of this wilderness on which mining is proposed have special properties. Rare properties. It has minerals we need in our society in concentrations high enough to warrant mining.
Remember some history here. There were six operating underground mines on the Vermilion Range for about 80 years -- all upstream of the BWCA -- and when they paused mining, the lakes downstream remained so clean that advocates got the government to declare them a wilderness. These mines were not subject to the type of regulation and inspection that is required today.
A modern, underground mine well outside of the BWCA can coexist with the designated preserve miles north of it.
I trust Ms. Rom and those who agree with her to insist on modern monitoring of the operation of the mine and the continuing protection of the BWCA. It’s easy to agree with safeguards.
Meanwhile, I’d like to see my hometown once again have the vibrancy and future it deserves. The rugged elan it had when we raised a toast to the miners.
Doug Luthanen grew up in Ely and graduated from Memorial High School in 1967. He wrote a weekly viewpoint column for the Northwest Arkansas Times for four years and is an occasional contributor to The Ely Echo.
