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News From 91.3 KUWS
Search for missing barrel sites underway on Lake Superior this month
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Story posted Thursday at 5:13 p.m. 7/18/2008 |
A sweep is underway of 110 square miles on western Lake Superior near Duluth. The target is half century-old Department of Defense barrels. Mike Simonson reports from Superior.
This comprehensive sonar search over parts of the next four months should answer questions about the mystery barrels dumped during the Cold War years.
The research vessel Blue Heron will be putting in long days during three expeditions scanning sectors of western Lake Superior, a strip five miles wide and 22 miles long from Lester River to Two Harbors on the lake's north shore. The Herron's mission is to find dump sites on Lake Superior's bottom that have been lost, whether intentionally or by the passing of time where ammunition and weapons parts were dumped by order of the Department of Defense.
The DOD is paying for this mission with a $603,000 grant to Wisconsin's Red Cliff Band of Chippewa. It's part of a program to deal with waste dumped on reservations and ceded territories across the United States. Red Cliff Environmental Director Melonee Montano says they're concerned about keeping this sacred lake from contamination but they're also being cautious.
"We just want to make sure that people know that we're not pushing for barrel removal at this time. We don't want to make that decision because we don't have any results as to how much is down there and what's down there. We would rather make a decision after all the results are found because it may be safer just to leave them there."
This month, Red Cliff hired EMR Engineering of Duluth, a Native American-owned operation that has been working on locating these barrels for the past two years. EMR Senior Geologist/Hydrogeologist Scott Carney says barrels won't be raised this year, but they'll get a close look by high-resolution sonar to check the condition of these 55 gallon drums.
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