Taconite and the Fight over Reserve Mining Company
Keyword(s):
Iron Ore
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Iron was a key component of steel, and steel was essential for industrial and military purposes. Postwar concerns about iron depletion led American mining interests to promote technologies and tax incentives to exploit taconite ore bodies. As the Reserve Mining case shows, taconite required expensive new processing technologies to be profitable, while creating new environmental consequences, particularly concerning finely ground tailings and the use of water. As taconite iron ore mining boomed in the Lake Superior basin in the three decades after World War II, faith in cooperative pragmatism began to clash with new industrial developments and new understandings of pollution mobility.