The Ely City Council decided to pass a resolution honoring the contribution to Ely of Twin Metals, a mining company which has zero chance of mining in the Ely area. Residents decided to protest by holding signs honoring the numerous local businesses that make Ely such a vibrant end-of-the-road community.
How is it that a remote small city in cold northern Minnesota has such a healthy community and economy? It has “throughput.” Ely is a destination for tourists and retirees. A person who gets to Ely wants to be there and is not bumping into it on the way to somewhere else. Although it is located on the Vermilion Iron Range, it has not had an active mine since 1966, but its local economy and spirit is stronger that of the actively mining cities on the Mesabi Iron Range. Its throughput brings in people with money, with ideas, with vision.
The new Zup’s Grocery in Ely was not designed with only Ely residents in mind. It has a selection of specialty products that no grocery on the Mesabi or even few in Duluth would have. The new hardware store has specialty tools that one would have to go to Duluth or order on line to get. Throughput generates more opportunity than any mine could possibly do on the local level. Mining removes the wealth and sends it somewhere else. Throughput keeps it in the local community.
Real economic development does not reside in the production of basic, raw commodities, like logging or mining. Productivity is so high in those industries that very few jobs get created. The money is in value added. That is why ethanol plants are popular in farm country. They provide value added processing in a rural, not urban, setting. They keep more of the money local. Paper mills and OSB plants also add value to timber, but, like ethanol, they’re operating at a very low level of adding value. Heat treated wood, as developed by the Northern Resources Research Institute in Duluth has the potential for adding much more value to wood. Iron-air battery production on the Range could add many more permanent jobs than simply mining the ore and shipping it away.
Northern Minnesota has assets, its water, natural beauty, four Class 1 railroads, international highways, and a deep sea port in Duluth-Superior. It’s time to drop the obsession with adding a short duration, small by international standards, copper-nickel mine and work with the true assets the region has.
De rerum natura 