Transforming Mine Lands in Minnesota

Request

In 1997, Millennia Consulting was asked to assist in the formation of the Laurentian Vision Partnership, a voluntary coalition of mining companies, business, government, education, professional and community interests representing all parts of a major mining region in northern Minnesota.

Issue

The Iron Range of Minnesota supplied most of the iron for World War II depleting its supply of 100% iron ore. Technological advances in the 1960’s enabled processing of a lower-grade ore (taconite) and revived another era of mining in the region. While providing the region with stellar jobs and workforce development, the open pit taconite operations left large craters and waste rock piles in their wake. Over the 40 years, individual mine sites had been re-graded and replanted, but no efforts were in place for large-scale, planned reshaping of sites for common economic, aesthetic, recreational and environmental benefits.

In the late 1990’s, US Steel, the Iron Range Resources Agency, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the University of Minnesota’s Landscape Architecture Department joined together to address the regional challenge and explore how active mining processes could reshape the mined landscape.

Millennia’s Approach

Over several years, Millennia helped develop the partnership by facilitating project planning, meetings, data collection, mapping sessions and public design workshops. The development process set the stage for how active mining tethered to community goals can help reshape the region’s physical landscape. The process resulted in the establishment of the Laurentian Vision Partnership (LVP) that is supported by diverse players, coordinated in the Iron Range Resources Agency and operated as an ongoing resource for “transforming mine pits and stock piles into new lakes and functional landscapes” --helping region be a healthy place to live and work.

Client Benefit

The Laurentian Vision Partnership continues to serve as both a convener and a land planner to assure that a diverse group of stakeholders have a voice in designing future landscapes and supporting the region as a healthy place to live and work. Goals include 1) preserving lands necessary to sustain current and future mining, 2) promoting landscape options for post-mining uses, 3) identifying and discussing new development opportunities and 4) providing the tools to achieve these goals:

• Community and Regional Visioning to help mining companies, communities and regional interests identify goals that promote sustainable mining and community enhancement.
• Land Design Workshops (Charrettes ) that translate local input and ideas into drawings, diagrams, maps and other illustrations to guide land-use decision making.
• Geographic Information System (GIS) Mapping to provide stakeholders with powerful information about how things are, and how they may be in the future.
• Innovation Grants for local projects that explore future uses for lands disturbed by mining, create jobs or solve public safety issues associated with the public use of private minelands
• Work Groups for Regional Cooperation that represent four sub-regions and work to identify and implement land design efforts and enable information exchange between constituencies.

For more information, visit http://www.lvpmn.org/_site_components/documents/user/about11.pdf