Do more than 1,000 barrels of military waste dumped into Lake Superior more than 50 years ago pose a threat to fish, aquatic, plant, and human life? That’s the $10,000 question the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is trying to answer regarding barrels of military waste that lie in waters ceded to the Tribe under treaties signed by the U.S. government.
When asked how the barrels— totaling 400 tons—got into the lake, Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program (NALEMP) Coordinator Gary Defoe Jr. of the Red Lake Band said between 1959-62 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used barges to haul the waste at night and sink the sealed industrial steel barrels in water anywhere from 65 to 400 feet in an area extending from Duluth to Larsmont. It is believed 1,437 55-gallon barrels filled with unwanted product from the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant were pitched into the Duluth harbor.
Containers were scattered throughout waters ceded to the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in the 1842 Treaty of LaPointe and 1854 Ojibwa Land Cession Treaties.
The waste came from a munitions plant in New Brighton, Minnesota. It was trucked to Duluth and loaded onto barges by the Corps of Engineers where it was dumped in various places. Unfortunately no maps were kept of where the barrels were disposed and no information about what was placed in them was ever recorded.
None of this came to light until a commercial fisherman found a barrel in 1968.
In the mid-1990s, Red Cliff began conducting investigations on the barrels, trying to determine what type of waste the Department of Defense (DOD) had put into them.
In 2012 the band retrieved 25 barrels from the lake bottom, and what they discovered was a shock to everyone involved.
Ejection cup assemblies for BLU-4 cluster bombs were found in 22 of the 25 barrels. Each barrel was found to contain 600 to 700 assemblies. The Department of Transportation classified these assemblies as explosive devices, and the band had to get additional permits before they could be transported.
Explosive experts determined the bombs contained an active ejection charge of M5 propellant and a double base smokeless powder containing nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose, which are commonly used in making military munitions.
After examining the propellant, they were found to contain a potential carcinogen, and just what effect this might have on fish or plants needs to be tested further.
To unravel the mystery, Red Cliff is working with a handful of governmental agencies. These include the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the U.S. Department of Defense which provides funding and plan review; the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers – Omaha District, which acts as fiscal agent and reviews the work plans; and the U.S. Coast Guard which is responsible for establishing and enforcing the restricted project work area. The band also works with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, as well as Ridolfi Environmental, which will be the contractor helping NALEMP with the investigation report.
In August 2015, Red Cliff received $256,465 from the Department of Defense to continue working on an Investigation Report begun in 2012 when the first 25 barrels were retrieved from the Duluth Harbor and neighboring waters.
The Investigation Report is now done and has been submitted, said Defoe Jr., who added highlights of that report would be shared in an upcoming North Shore presentation.
When talking about the submerged barrels and crates, Defoe Jr. said, “It is assumed that these could potentially pose a threat to human health and the aquatic ecosystem.”
The Tribe’s efforts under the NALEMP to fully assess these threats are being funded by the U.S. Department of Defense under a cooperative agreement administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Defoe Jr. and until those threats are fully understood, the work will continue unabated.
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