Drug bus visits Iron Range today; hauls propaganda, drugs

From Wednesday's Hibbing Daily Tribune:

HIBBING — Area residents who are uninsured or having difficulties financially have a way to connect with programs that provide prescription medicines at low or no cost.

The “Help Is Here Express” Bus Tour will stop in Hibbing on Thursday, May 1. From 2 to 3 p.m., the bus will be parked at Fairview University Medical Center-Mesabi, helping area residents access information on available programs.

That's right, folks. Step up to the drug company's solution to rising prescription drug prices and the increasing unaffordability of basic medical care. It's a big orange bus that generates media coverage! I'm sure the folks on the bus have good intentions, but one drug bus just isn't enough to solve the systemic health care issues facing this region or the country at large.

Meantime, more practically, the Iron Range is a bastion for older folks on fixed incomes who at one time or another were part of a labor riot. That drug bus better be stocked to the hilt with free Lipitor or blood will run in the streets.

Governor signs miners' health study funding bill

This was out earlier, but I'll make belated mention that Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed a bill funding research about the cause of higher-than-average rates of a rare form of cancer in former Iron Ranger miners. As I've said, this will provide a whole lot of people a whole lot of answers about the risks of mining. I certainly understand that mining will go on and that there are more dangerous vocations out there than mining. But if there was a way to recognize a specific risk factor and mitigate it, why wouldn't you? This will eventually save lives.

Smoking ban aftermath: Duluth bars holding on

The Duluth News-Tribune reported Saturday that a review of tax receipts has shown little change in the success of Duluth bars after the statewide smoking ban went into effect last year.

Tax data collected by the city of Duluth suggests that the statewide smoking ban that went into effect six months ago has not had a measurably negative impact on Duluth’s bar and restaurant business.

Anecdotal evidence from some Duluth bars supports this conclusion, as does the fact that the city clerk’s office has not seen a rise in bars going out of business.

I have long argued that the economic effect of the smoking ban on local bars can be overcome. It will take some time but these numbers are encouraging. I imagine the numbers are a little worse up on the Iron Range but once folks are used to this change in regulation folks will come back to the bars.

T-Paw warming up to Iron Range

It's Iron Range reconciliation week at the governor's office. Gov. Tim Pawlenty apologized for a recent verbal dust up with State. Rep. Tony Sertich on his radio program today. This comes the day after a reported compromise on funding for the Iron Range miners' health study.

Group hug, everyone. Let's hug this out.

Governor to sign Iron Range health study bill

I just got word from a source at the Capitol that Gov. Tim Pawlenty will sign a bill funding mesothelioma research for former and current Iron Range miners to determine if there is a link between this rare cancer and taconite fibers. Funding for the study will come from state sources and not from the Range's taconite funds, which many believe should be dedicated to communities, schools and economic development. (The taconite tax has funded the University of Minnesota, in part, for decades).

I don't know if this development is part of a deal or if Pawlenty had a change of heart after threatening to veto the bill last week. In any event this is good news. With luck, this University of Minnesota study of about 7,000 people will lead to a clearer understanding of this issue and, ideally, a safer workplace for Iron Range miners in the 21st Century.

Kudos to all those who made this happen.

Pawlenty fails to understand Iron Range, again

I'm not as harsh in my criticism of Gov. Tim Pawlenty as most other Iron Rangers and most other progressive bloggers. I've always considered him a likable guy and a worthy political foe. But today, the governor deserves special rebuke for his threat Thursday to veto funding for a state study to investigate the cause of a rare form of cancer found in many Iron Range miners over the last several decades.

Gov. Pawlenty believes that any funding for a "mining" study should come from taconite tax revenue, not the statewide worker's compensation fund. Most House Republicans agreed with him Thursday and voted against the bill, which still passed with bipartisan support. The Senate is expected to pass the same bill and call Pawlenty on his bluff.

I think most people recognize the need for this study and the moral imperative to mitigate potential dangers that would threaten the lives of another generation of Iron Range workers. What Pawlenty and many outside the Iron Range often fail to understand is that our taconite tax revenue, while significant during good times (and not all times are good), is not a secret pot of cash that we use to buy beer and ammunition. It is what mining companies pay IN LIEU of PROPERTY TAX. Mines own or lease thousands of acres of enormously valuable land in northern Minnesota and they don't pay a dime in property tax. Suburbs raise their revenue from those sleek office buildings along the freeways and in overpriced residential homes. The Iron Range raises its school and community funds from taconite taxes, and per capita we get less money over time as a result. But wait, there's more. All the while over Range history a portion of these taconite taxes have gone to the state general fund or to the University of Minnesota fund, money that has benefited more than a million people who couldn't find the Iron Range on a map.

Gov. Pawlenty frequently laments any Iron Range project or program that doesn't rely exclusively on our taconite taxes. We aren't deserving of general state funds, because of our financial privilege. (Anyone who has been to my native Iron Range understands my implied sarcasm).

But every rock of taconite or iron ore that has been taxed was lifted by hand, shovel or machine by Iron Range working men and women. And some of them got cancer after asbestos exposure that may have come from the mining process. And today, the study that was finally going to figure out this problem, providing hope to sick people and their families, was threatened with a veto because T-Paw thinks the Iron Range should take money out of cash-strapped blue collar schools and communities to pay for it. And still today the University of Minnesota thrives in part because of decades of that same mining revenue, while every one of us will today touch steel originating from the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota.

Tim Pawlenty just doesn't understand. At least, I hope he doesn't. Because if he does he has a heart of coal and no business holding his high office.

"Tobacco Monologues" panned by Health Dept., "show" to close immediately

Minnesota Public Radio is reporting that the state health department is shutting down the popular "theater exemption" loophole used by bars around the state to get around the new statewide workplace smoking ban recently. I wrote a column on the subject last week. My piece only received two responses, one negative from a bar owner and one positive from the local American Lung Association representative. A friend also wrote an articulate rebuttal to my column on libertarian grounds in the comments section of that column. But that was all, so far.

Today, Health Commissioner Sanne Magnan declared that theatre nights in bars are not exempt from the smoking ban.

"This exemption was never intended to fill up a whole room full of people smoking in a public place. So we concluded that he bars are really attempting to circumvent the freedom to breathe act," Commissioner Magnan said.

Magnan said today's announcement is a warning to bars holding theatre nights that the party's over. If they continue circumventing the law, they'll be leaving themselves open to fines of up to $10,000. Magnan's decision immediately drew catcalls from the industry.

Jim Farrell, Executive Director of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, said the health department's announcement is compounding the confusion about a law that's riddled with loopholes.

"Instead of admitting that there is a possibility that what they are doing is creating confusion, it's like they can never back down on anything," Farrell said. He said Magnan's decision about the theater loophole leaves it unclear what is legal under the law and what is not. He said it would better for the state to close the theatrical loophole altogether and have actual theatres use fake cigarettes for productions.

"That's when you come forward and say look, we made these exceptions, we found out there are problems with them, we are going to change them, when it comes to the smoking in the theatre we think it's asinine because we know that second hand smoke is dangerous," Farrell said.

That's right. Because the fact that actors aren't using fake cigarettes is what this is really about.

Bars have taken a hit. I'm not disputing that. It's time to plan for the future. These smoking bans are becoming standard, along with the clean water and cooking regulations we have come to expect. Smoke all you want -- on your private property, in your car or at a private location without employees. That line of consent for employees exposed to secondhand smoke is the new guide for smoking in public. And I don't believe that drinking or fast food will come next. Prohibition failed and those are vices that can only impact those who choose to drink or eat.

Freaking beobabs everywhere!

Who remembers "The Little Prince?" In this French children's book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a pilot meets an alien who looks like a little kid. This "Little Prince" lives on a tiny planet where all he does is pull up the baobab trees so they don't take root and choke his world. C'est une métaphore!

In Wednesday's Hibbing Daily Tribune, we learned that the Iron Range city of Hibbing is running out of water from its primary aquifer. Mining operations at Hibbing Taconite are draining away the ground water that feeds the source. Big news, if I didn't know that the PUC was warning about this almost TEN YEARS AGO! (Seriously, there were newspaper stories and everything).

This comes on the heels of several Range news stories that are far from "breaking." The Canisteo mine pit near Bovey is an impending flood risk. True, but that was predicted a decade ago and nothing was done. The rare cancer mesothelioma got headlines last year after the state health department withheld a statistical analysis showing how taconite miners were at higher risk of contracting the disease. Our TV screens were flooded with officials who were "shocked, just shocked" by the news, but this story has been around for a decade or more, too. Old timers will tell you they could sense there was something wrong in the taconite dust back in the '70s.

It's time for some foresight around here. Pull up these baobabs.

City water dipping toward critical level
By Mike Jennings, Editor,
Hibbing Daily Tribune

HIBBING — Water produced by a key well is falling toward critical levels, and officials at Hibbing’s Public Utilities are seeking expert help in determing what to do next.

Corey Lubovich, chief of utility operations, told the city’s utilities commission Tuesday that water being pumped form the Scranton well, the city’s most productive water source, had fallen by 100 gallons per minute over the previous 30 days, to a level of 565 gallons per minute.

“It’s still dropping,” Lubovich said.

Jim Kochevar, the utilities’ general manager, said his staff is searching for an engineering firm that can advise it on what to do. He said options include developing one or more new wells, including a test bore that has already been dug in the North Hibbing Industrial Park, or trying to rehabilitate the Scranton well.

The city also draws water from five smaller wells that stretch southward from First Ave. Road.

“I think that it’s important that we move on this as early as possible,” Kochevar said. “You know, if we bobble somewhere, that may get us into a circumstance of having to curtail water use.”

He told the commission that water production from the Scranton well should remain sufficient to meet normal needs for at least the next two or three months, but restrictions on some types of water use, such as car washing and lawn sprinkling, were possible by next summer.

The amount of water that can be pumped from the Scranton well on Hibbing’s north side depends on the depth of the water inside it. Utilities officials say water in the well is getting shallower because the Hibbing Taconite Co. has pumped water from a mine pit 200 yards away.

Kochevar said that by dewatering the mine pit to get at a vein of taconite, the company is also reducing the level of standing water in the aquifer-fed well. The well’s production is now down to about half its peak capacity, he said.

Miners' health study carries hefty price tag

Yesterday, lawmakers learned that it will cost $5.5 million to do a study about the effects of the taconite mining process on miners' health. For years, anecdotal evidence and incomplete reports have suggested a link between working in the mining industry and a rare form of cancer. The question now becomes, do people in power actually have the fortitude to fund this expensive but comprehensive study? Rep. Tom Rukavina is quoted as saying the state should follow through when the governor balks. Here's the roundup from today's Duluth News-Tribune with more after the jump.

Miners lung study to cost $5.5 million
Lee Bloomquist, Duluth News Tribune - 12/18/2007

EVELETH — A study of the causes of lung disease among Northeastern Minnesota iron ore miners will cost $5.5 million. And some people are wondering where money to answer the longstanding health question will come from.

“We’re going to find the money,” state Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, assured about 50 people Monday at a meeting of the Minnesota Taconite Workers Lung Health Partnership at Iron Range Resources headquarters in Eveleth. “I would like to find all of it up-front and secure it away.”

The partnership is aimed at determining once and for all what has caused a sharp increase in mesothelioma deaths among Iron Range miners.

Mesothelioma is a rare, usually fatal lung disease related to asbestos exposure.

A statewide cancer surveillance system determined that 58 of 72,000 miners who worked in the iron ore industry between the 1950s and 1983 died from the disease.

The disease rate among the miners is much higher than the expected rate in Northeastern Minnesota. But it never has been determined what causes the disease.

Researchers determined in 2003 that 17 of the miners probably developed the disease from commercial asbestos dust. Some critics said the Health Department didn’t look hard enough at mine dust.

The new study will examine whether working in the mines is a risk factor for lung disease, whether other diseases occur as a result of working in a mine, and whether spouses are at risk, said Dr. Jeffrey Mandel, University of Minnesota School of Public Health associate professor. The exhaustive five-year Health Department study would include health examinations of current and former workers and spouses, air sampling in Iron Range communities and near mines, lake-bottom sampling, mineral analysis and historical data, Mandel said.

“This is the time to figure out what is going on,” Mandel said. “The rate here is clearly elevated. There’s no point in waiting longer.”

Miners' health issues not easy to figure out

The Duluth News-Tribune and others are reporting that the state health department has begun compiling data on the Iron Range miners who died from a rare form of cancer. The findings are inconclusive, other than few of the miners involved worked in a ceiling tile factory in Cloquet. That was the story many officials and mining company apologists were pushing a few months ago.

Many results, fewer answers
By Steve Kuchera, Duluth News Tribune - 12/08/2007

A new analysis of information on 58 Minnesota mine workers who died from mesothelioma reveals a large variation in where and for how long they worked in the industry.

The Minnesota Department of Health, which did the analysis, will use the findings in preparing multi-year studies aimed at determining what might have caused the rare, asbestos-related lung cancer. Those studies will be done in collaboration with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Jeff Mandel, a professor at the school and one of the leaders on the planned research, said the analysis contains some interesting information, but points to the need for further study.

“The critical question here is whether exposures in the workplace are somehow related to these [58] cases,” he said. “The reason for this number of cases really has to be determined. It has caused a lot of questions in people’s minds and a lot of concern. The only way those issues are going to be addressed is to do a more formal investigation.”

Mesothelioma is a rare, fatal form of cancer seen almost exclusively in people who have been exposed to asbestos. The disease shows up at about twice the expected rate in Northeastern Minnesota, raising questions about a possible relationship between respiratory disease and mining work.

The 58 miners — all men — were among 72,000 people who worked in the state’s iron mining industry between the 1930s and 1982.