Opinions/Editorials

A belated March 2 Happy Birthday to the legendary Dr. Seuss!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go...”

~ Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Ely was a bustling place to be a week ago. Although the dog sled races had to be cancelled due to a lack of snow, there were still so many places to go.

If you start your Saturday by turning on polka music to get your feet tapping, then that is a time when you won’t be napping.

This past Saturday was a Saturday like that.

For 50 years the Pioneer Mine has been silent yet on this day there was plenty of commotion. The Pink Ribbon Riders with their colorful snowmobiles were ready to be in motion.

There’s a saying that goes like this: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Another attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the people of northeast Minnesota will be seen for what it is: bunk. This past week another group against mining popped up. But it’s by and large the same people who are in multiple other anti-mining groups.
The new Boundary Waters Business Coalition fits right in with other groups since it’s membership base looks just like “Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness” or “Save the Boundary Waters” or “Sportsmen For the Boundary Waters.”
In fact, the membership form has this statement at the bottom: “This form was created inside of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness.” The email address listed is for Sportsmen For the Boundary Waters.

Newspapers. The industry has been under scrutiny for some years.

Probably each of us has an idea of what our personal favorite newspaper should be. There’s always the question of whether we need to approve of every item in our personal newspaper or if we would be bored not knowing what our neighbors or opposites think.

There’s the quick gut reaction found in social media - Facebook, Twitter, and other sources, but they are not the permanent mark of a letter to the editor of a newspaper. This newspaper.
This newspaper is part of the record of the United States. It becomes a part of the Library of Congress Copyright Office.

When a letter to the Echo office is submitted by email or in print, what happens to it?

Almost always it gets printed.

The publisher readies it for the paper and then it is shown to the Editor, General Manager and also to other staff members of the Ely Echo.

Intra-party fighting for the DFL pitted Eighth District Congressman Rick Nolan against Twin Cities-based Betty McCollum this past week. In the end, Nolan shows how he did the near impossible, win as a Democrat in the Eighth where Republican Donald Trump came out victorious as well.
How did Nolan do it? By listening to the people who live here. Nolan knows the support for mining is strong in northeast Minnesota. That’s why people like McCollum have to resort to back-door political moves instead of decisions based in science and determined by laws.
This past week McCollum attacked Nolan for his attempts to right a wrong created in the waning days of the Obama administration.

An idea proposed 20 years ago may make more sense today: To break off the northern half of St. Louis County to create Iron County.
The division on the St. Louis County board was clearly visible this past week when the Duluth commissioners helped shoot down Tom Rukavina’s resolution opposing the federal government’s attempt to stop mining here.
Setting aside the politics and focusing on the financial impact, the potential of the county (not to mention Duluth as well) losing millions of dollars in mining royalties should have EVERY county commissioner beyond concerned.
Let’s take a look at the resolution without all the whereas parts:

Twenty years ago there was a snowmobile parade right down Sheridan Street. The machines were lined up off Third Avenue and headed west, turning on Central Avenue. The Weather Channel even filmed what turned out to be the largest snowmobile parade at the time.
That parade was in celebration of the second year of the Arctic Blast, an event started by area leaders that continues today as the Fun Run.
Still snowmobile based but open to anyone who would like to participate, the Fun Run is the start of the winter event season. The Ely Winter Festival follows on its heels with events like the Snow Sculpture Symposium and Beard Fest. There’s also the WolfTrack Classic dog sled race.

Dear Secretary Vilsack and Secretary Jewell:
As elected leaders of the Minnesota Legislature, we are writing to express our outrage at the recent politically-driven decisions issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) related to mineral development in Northeast Minnesota.
Initiating actions to withdraw nearly 240,000 acres of federal lands and minerals from future exploration and potential development and denying the renewal of 50-year federal mineral leases held by Twin Metals Minnesota are onerous decisions that will cause devastating and irreversible damage to the citizens, communities and economy of the region.
We seek your immediate reconsideration and reversal of these actions, and urge you to refocus your agencies on the proper tasks of accepting and assessing mining project proposals under the regulatory procedures established by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other related federal statutes.

by Anne Swenson, Publisher
The Ely Echo is moving ahead into 2017, welcoming new equipment and new innovation. And we also welcome Cam Weisert into expanded roles as a staff member at the Echo. He joins General manager Nick Wognum, Echo Editor Tom Coombe, Graphic Designer Lisa Vidal-Sainio, and Sales Rep Terri Reinesch.
Together we have over 112 years with the Ely Echo, receiving pay checks every two weeks, paying property taxes just like each of you do.
We sure have had a challenging winter thus far and we’ve rolled with the punches - bringing a new bathroom on line, a new phone system and new printing equipment as well as a whole new photo printing setup to serve our customers.

If nothing else, 2016 was a wild ride.
It sure seemed like a newsworthy year in our news room and compiling the annual “year in review” spread for this week’s edition, which can be found elsewhere in this section, only provided confirmation.
We find it hard to believe that a community our size anywhere in the state, or perhaps the nation for that matter, generates as much attention and coverage as Ely.
Copper-nickel mining. The Twin Metals debate, from the listening sessions to the unprecedented meeting between the city council and Gov. Mark Dayton to the 11th hour edict issued by the Obama Administration. Wind storms. Fires. Pillow Rock. Aerial spraying. A raid on one of our bait shots. The transformation of our downtown. The Facebook firestorm over an election-related post by one of our city council members.
You name it and it seemed to happen in Ely this year.
And people noticed. Locally, regionally and in some cases nationally.

A political decision made in Washington D.C. last week involving leases for Twin Metals Minnesota doesn’t hold water. There is no science, there are no hard facts, just emotions and rhetoric. We can only hope President-Elect Trump’s appointees will undo this travesty.
Newspapers get news releases daily, many of them from various levels of government. They provide information on what bureaucrats are up to or want people to know. The one from the Interior Department could’ve easily been written by anti-mining activist Becky Rom.
Here’s some of the wording used:
• Agencies deny sulfide-ore copper lease
• Mining impacts near pristine watershed
• Acid mine drainage is a significant environmental risk
• Decision echoes the concerns of former Vice President Walter Mondale and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton