CEAC-2018-12-December

NEWS
cial properties sustained flood damage.
“If you don’t have anything running and you ever want
to sell it, they’re worthless,” Ingrid Krause, Carlo Krause’s
wife, said during a walk through the damaged buildings in
Mazomanie. “What’s sad is that everything was basically in
original condition.”
Microcars became popular modes of cheap transportation
after World War II and were built by manufacturers across
Europe, including by companies that had been making military
equipment during the war. Most of the early microcars
traveled no faster than 50 mph with 200cc to 250cc, one-cylinder
engines, while later models sported slightly larger
motors that increased speeds to more than 70 mph.
Beebe had visited the Microcar Museum just a week prior
to the flood and reached out to Carlo Krause shortly after
learning of the museum’s plight. Just days later he was at
Krause’s farm shed, which holds other cars in Krause’s collection.
Only now it resembles a working museum of repair.
Doors and small hoods to the vehicles are propped open and
even two months after the flood, dehumidifiers and fans are
constantly running in an effort to draw out moisture from
the vehicles.
Beebe and his assistant, Doug Heideman, who worked at
Foreign Car Specialists prior to its closing in 2014, have been
using rags and cleaning solutions to remove mud and oil but
have also flushed engine compartments and chain cases with
a mixture of isopropyl alcohol and WD-40. Wiring has been
repaired and generators, carburetors and anything else that
holds water have been removed (if possible) and dried.
“There was water in everything,” Beebe said. “It’s taken a lot
to get mechanical stuff back working again.”
But the effort to make the microcars whole again has involved
some sleuthing by Beebe, since there are few resources
in the U.S. for repairing the tiny vehicles. So when Beebe
had a question about how much oil was held in the chain
case of a Messerschmitt, he went to a mud-stained membership
publication of a Messerschmitt club that was salvaged
from the floodwaters. Beebe was able to find phone numbers
for two of the four people in the U.S. listed in the 1978
booklet. One of them, from Florida, called back.
“He was so nice. It was really great,” Beebe said. “There are
no manuals for this stuff.”
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The closed LTV Steel taconite plant is abandoned near Hoyt Lakes, Minn. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018,
that it has issued permits to Poly Met Mining Inc. for a planned copper-nickel mine at the site. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)
Divisive Minnesota Mine Wins Permits,
But Faces Challenges By Jeff Baenen
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota regulators on Thursday,
Nov. 1, granted key permits to the long-planned PolyMet
copper-mining project that’s opposed by environmentalists
who fear it could someday foul waters, including Lake Superior.
The state Department of Natural Resources issued permits to
PolyMet Mining Inc. for the company’s proposed NorthMet
project in northeastern Minnesota. The project still needs
permits from other agencies, and likely faces court challenges.
“No project in the history of Minnesota has been more
thoroughly evaluated,” DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr
said in announcing approval of permits for the project, first
proposed in 2004.
Environmentalists have opposed the mine for fear it could
pollute pristine waters and destroy habitat for gray wolves
and Canada lynx. The project would be located near tributaries
feeding the St. Louis River, 175 river miles upstream from
Lake Superior.
Duluth for Clean Water said the proposed mine “would
create permanent, toxic pollution in the headwaters of Lake
Superior, putting our communities and lives in constant
danger.”
(Continued on page 22)
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Volume 83 · Number 12 | 21