The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has developed a draft air permit for MagIron LLC in Coleraine that will require a fugitive dust control plan to help reduce emissions of particulate matter from roads, storage, stockpiles, and exposed mining areas.
MagIron is the new owner of the former Prairie River Minerals Demonstration Plant, the former Mag Mining LLC Plant 4, and Jessie Loadout, all located west of Coleraine. With MagIron's purchases of the operations, the facilities are under common control and are considered a single stationary source for the air permit. Although MagIron will produce iron concentrate at its facility, it is not a taconite ore processing plant because it will not produce taconite pellets. The combined three sites are known as MagIron Plant 4 and include:
- Prairie River site, a scram mining operation designed to produce high-grade iron ore from low-grade legacy waste rock stockpiles. The material will be crushed and processed to produce a maximum of 1.75 million metric tons per year of lump ore and sinter feed.
- Plant 4, also a scram mining operation, designed to produce iron concentrate from stockpiled iron-bearing materials. It can produce 3 million metric tons per year of concentrate.
- Jessie Loadout, a rail loadout facility that will receive concentrate from Plant 4.
For more information on the MagIron facility, visit the MPCA’s MagIron web page. More general information also is available about air permits and fugitive dust.
Comments and public meeting
To ensure sources of air pollution comply with the Clean Air Act, the MPCA drafted a Part 70 operating permit for this facility and invites the public to comment on it on SmartComment. The 30-day comment period starts Aug. 12. The MPCA will consider comments as it revises and finalizes the permit.
An in-person public informational meeting about the permit will take place Aug. 19, 2024, at 6 p.m. at Nyberg Community Center, 302 Roosevelt Ave., Coleraine, MN 55722.