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A century of red water: mine waste, legacy contamination, and institutional amnesia in Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range

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Abstract

Beginning in 1910, new technologies for mining and processing low-grade iron ore created novel environmental challenges for Minnesota’s iron mining communities. Unlike earlier high-grade iron ore which required little processing before shipping, low-grade iron ore required extensive processing near mining sites, and that processing created vast quantities of finely-ground tailings that mobilized into nearby streams, lakes, and communities. In Lake Superior’s Mesabi Range, low-grade iron ores brought significant economic benefits, but they were coupled with equally significant environmental transformations. Drawing on archival records from the first legal case in Minnesota over the pollution of surface waters from migrating mine waste, this paper asks: how did communities in the Mesabi Range respond to the new environmental challenges from low-grade iron ore? How did these negotiations between Mesabi communities, mining companies and the state play out in the courts? How did these court battles shape state mining policy? How have local heritage organizations and state agencies remembered and memorialized these environmental legacies?

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(Adapted from the map “Itasca County, Minnesota: Cheap Homes for Thousands”, Reishus-Remer Land Co., 1908, University of Minnesota Libraries, John R. Borchert Map Library)

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(Adapted from, “Ore Washing Plant of the Wisconsin Steel Co.”, Mining and Engineering World, July 13, 1912)

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant #R56645, Toxic Mobilizations in Iron Mining Contamination). Nancy Langston at Michigan Tech provided considerable feedback and support. I am thankful for the helpful comments made by the anonymous reviewers, who’s suggestions greatly improved this manuscript. I also thank the staff at the Gale Family Library and the Minnesota Historical Society for assistance with the Kellogg, Davis and Severance papers.

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  1. Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Dr, Houghton, MI, 49931, USA

    John Baeten

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Baeten, J. A century of red water: mine waste, legacy contamination, and institutional amnesia in Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. Water Hist 10, 245–266 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-018-0220-y

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