U.S. Steel's mines on the Iron Range are turning out less pellets these days but this spring, they'll be using their land to help the local waterfowl population.

Chris Buckley has more on the unique partnership between one of the world's largest steel companies and the Hibbing chapter of "Delta Waterfowl"

This week, volunteers met in Mountain Iron to build dozens of hen houses for migrating birds.

The houses sit above ground and keep predators away while ducks are nesting.

"It's kind of a Cadillac for them, a Cadillac condo."

U.S. Steel donated all the materials.. and employees donated their time to the cause.

"We try to take care of the areas where we live and work and obviously environmental stewardship is one of our core values, and this goes back to where we live and work, it's a great project."

"Over the next few weeks, they'll be putting 15 hen houses on U.S. Steel property over at Minntac in Mountain Iron and another 15 here at Keetac. It's a project more than a year in the making."

"Partnering with US Steel is big, with all the private land they have in wetlands, we couldn't have asked for anything more than this."

Delta will be monitoring the houses they have a 93 percent success rate in Minnesota.

"We'll take GPS coordinates of them, pictures, so we know where they're at, check on them and during the spring we'll be checking the hen count, the success rate, and what kinds of ducks there are."

The Minnesota Trappers association is lending a hand as well and the goal is to increase the region's duck numbers which have been down in recent years.

In Mountain Iron Chris Buckley the Northlands Newscenter.

There are more than a dozen Delta Waterfowl chapters in Minnesota.