EPA and U.S. Steel agree on terms for cleanup of former Duluth mill

by MinnPost staff 08/29/201808/29/2018

Better late than never. John Myers at the Duluth News Tribune has a piece on a long overdue agreement: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced an agreement with U.S. Steel Corp. on a $75 million cleanup and restoration project at the company’s former Duluth steel mill along the St. Louis River. The site has been on the federal Superfund cleanup list since 1983 due to extensive pollution of coal tar and other toxic contaminants, both on land and in the Spirit Lake area of the St. Louis River estuary off Duluth’s Morgan Park neighborhood.”

The view from above. KSTP gassed up Chopper 5 to document the damage and flooding from Monday night’s heavy storms: “At the outage’s peak, 22,500 Xcel Energy customers in Minnesota and Wisconsin were without power. … in southeast Minnesota, powerful winds downed trees and power lines. No injuries have been reported.”

The next Hasselhoff? Lou Raguse at KARE 11 has the story of a Little Falls musician’s break coming via some Polish DJs and a viral video: “Earlier this year, [Michael] Shynes recorded vocals through a job-for-hire website for Polish DJs ‘Komodo,’ not knowing how they would use it. It was the 1986 hit by Cutting Crew, ‘I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight.’ The Polish DJs used the vocals on a remix they made for Sony Records. … Now he’s on his way to Poland to perform the song with Komodo live Friday night at the country’s biggest music festival in front of 50,000 people.“

Still a ways to go. Dan Kraker at MPR News outlines the four steps PolyMet needs to take before its copper-nickel mine can open: “The controversial project, nearly 15 years in the works, still faces several hurdles before construction can begin, including lawsuits, potential administrative hearings, several key permits PolyMet still needs to obtain — and the significant funding the company needs to raise to build the nearly $1 billion project, which would include a mine just south of the Iron Range town of Babbitt, Minn., and a processing facility a few miles south in Hoyt Lakes.”