A Landscape of Water and Waste: How Low-Grade Iron Ore Mining Transformed the Mesabi Range

• In Event: Knowing Mines in North America: Memory, Science, and the Environment since 1900

Abstract

The Mesabi Range in northern Minnesota has been the most productive iron range in the history of the United States. From their onset in 1893 to today, the Mesabi mines have produced more than 3.8 billion tons of iron ore, of which low-grade ores accounted for nearly 90%. The shift to low-grade iron ore mining resulted in the expansion of massive open-pit mines and a concentration of industrial activity centered at iron ore processing plants. Since they required processing before they were considered merchantable, the mining of low-grade iron ores placed new demands on the environment. These demands were most pronounced at iron ore processing facilities, which consumed vast sums of water and produced an abundant form of mine waste (tailings), during ore concentration.

The mining and processing of low-grade ores in the Mesabi Range created a landscape dominated by new bodies of water and waste. Although mine waste and mine-pit lakes cover a majority of the Mesabi Range, neither has received significant attention from heritage organizations. This has fostered a distorted collective memory of the region’s mining history, as heritage organizations have focused their attention instead on massive machines, active mines, and nostalgia, rather than the vast environmental impacts that these mining technologies created.

This paper explores low-grade iron ore mining in the Mesabi Range through the lens of industrial heritage and environmental history. What landscape changes occurred from the mining and processing of low-grade iron ores in the Mesabi Range? What mining technologies are memorialized by heritage organizations? Can recognizing the importance of mine waste engage the public with not only where and why waste exists, but what the waste consists of, and how to best manage it? What role can industrial heritage and environmental history play in shaping mining policy and abandoned mine cleanup efforts?

Author

• John Baeten, Michigan Technological University