Minnesota's Executive Council on Wednesday approved a mining lease for Magnetation LLC to recover iron ore concentrate on state and county land near Coleraine.
The council, the state's top elected officials, approved the deal that will allow Magnetation to recover ore from the Cushing and Buckeye areas on the Itasca County portion of the western Iron Range, near the old Canisteo Mine.
The lease is for mineral rights held by the state and did not involve any surface land owned by private landowners.
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources officials said the lease could bring between $50 million and $220 million in revenue to the state's Permanent School Trust Fund through lease fees and royalties paid by Magnetation over many years.
Magnetation has a special process to recover valuable ore out of the waste material from old natural iron ore mines on the Iron Range that closed decades ago, essentially recycling a discarded material. This is one of several sites across the Range where Magnetation is or will be recovering ore.
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The DNR adjusted the area included in the lease to avoid the popular Mount Itasca ski complex.
The project was considered noncontroversial, unlike recent DNR efforts to award mineral leases for copper mining exploration on land privately owned but under which the state owns the mineral rights. Those efforts are on hold pending a state court decision on whether the DNR must conduct an environmental review before awarding leases.
