Department of Defense barrels taken from the bottom of Lake Superior near Duluth are slowly giving up secrets. Mike Simonson reports.

A study due out in about six months and federal funding will determine if all of the questions of the barrels’ contents will be answered.

Like a Hitchcock thriller, the Department of Defense barrels dumped during the Cold War years only seem to get more mysterious. Nine barrels exhumed in 1990 and 1994 showed low levels of contaminants from top secret grenade parts, but nothing explosive. That changed when 25 barrels were raised last summer by the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. Project Manager Julie Molina says about 15,000 flash drive-sized active cluster bomb detonators were inside 22 of those barrels.

“If it went off in your hand it could do serious damage up to perhaps taking off the hand. But the larger concern is that they are capable of sympathetic reaction that if one were to go off and were in proximity to others, it would cause a chain reaction.”

Because of federal regulations, the detonators were returned to Lake Superior’s bottom until they can be safely removed this summer. But will the other 1400-plus barrels be dredged up? Molina says that depends

“If moving the barrels would cause greater ecological damage than leaving them in place, it’s going to examine both sides of those issues to determine what would be the best in terms of ecological protection. Beyond that, then it will also address the cost.”

Red Cliff Tribal Elder Leo LaFernier says they want this mystery solved. But that may not be up to them.

“Whether all 1400 barrels are to be retrieved, if the Department (of Defense) is going to fund? Right now we don’t know.”

So far, the DoD has paid Red Cliff $3.3 million to locate, remove and study the barrels.

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