Aging explosives dumped back into Lake Superior
RED CLIFF, Wis. (AP) — Some 22 barrels of military ammunition that were dumped into Lake Superior decades ago have been re-submerged while a local tribe and clean-up workers seek a federal waiver to bring the barrels to shore.
A Duluth News Tribune report says the barrels contain thousands of tiny explosive devices. Each is only as potent as a firecracker, but officials worried that one detonation could cause a serious chain reaction.
Back around 1960, Army ordinance officers ordered the 55-gallon drums secretly tossed into the lake a few miles from shore. Some barrels were later found to have only trace levels of water-polluting chemicals, so officials let them remain.
Officials raised 25 barrels last summer. But they re-submerged the 22 that contained explosives, while they seek a waiver to bring them ashore.
Mar 9, 2013 at 6:53 a.m.
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What we need on these blogs are more water walkers
Mar 9, 2013 at 12:58 a.m.
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dump them in walkers front lawn, it will remind him of the mining bill!
Mar 8, 2013 at 7:41 p.m.
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Not just walker. Seems any headline turns into a political discussion.
Mar 8, 2013 at 7:20 p.m.
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I love how every headline is an oppertunity to bash Walker no mater how unrelated it is.
Get your head out of your a$$ come back to reality.
Mar 8, 2013 at 5:25 p.m.
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What is shocking....is that there are still 1,400 barrels in the lake.
Barrels of military waste resubmerged in Lake Superior
"The $3.3 million cleanup project was funded by a Department of Defense program aimed at cleaning up old military messes left behind on Indian lands. It's only the second time the program sought to clean up military waste that was underwater.
There are still another 1,400 barrels in the lake. EMR will study whether those barrels should be raised to protect human and environmental health or whether they should be allowed to rust away and sink into the sediment if moving them might cause more ecological damage.
That report is expected by September.
Between 1957 and 1962, the steel drums were trucked from a weapons plant in the Twin Cities to Duluth and secretly tossed off barges into Lake Superior.
Several efforts have been made to retrieve them since the military confirmed their existence in 1977. While tests on some barrels turned up traces of toxic chemicals, MPCA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials concluded that leaving the remaining barrels under 200 feet of water posed no major risk.
The Red Cliff band became involved in 2005, when tribal officials said they adopted the project as a way to attract federal military cleanup money. Though the Red Cliff Reservation is 50 miles from the nearest known dump site, the band has treaty authority to be involved in environmental and natural resource management on Lake Superior."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Article below from Duluth...
Red Cliff forced to dump Explosives Back into Lake Superior
http://mobile.duluthnewstribune.com/page...
Mar 8, 2013 at 5:05 p.m.
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Yep yep yep fershure !
This makes a lot of sense..find something bad in the water, bring it up....and HAVE TO DUMP IT BACK IN THE WATER UNTIL YOU GET A PERMIT to take it back out...
I call this plain old CRAP..
Nothing to do with political party, just MORONS...running things..
Geesh...
Mar 8, 2013 at 4:19 p.m.
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I can't imagine that the GOP supporters will think this is okay. This should prove that Walker is not an environmental supporter.
Mar 8, 2013 at 11:59 a.m.
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Hedgehogs will solve the problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps9Sr0HNc...
Mar 8, 2013 at 11:53 a.m.
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I heard the state of Washington has a bunch of nuclear waste to get rid of. Being Walker doesn't care about the environment, he should make a deal to dump it in the lake. (sarcasm) The repubs could even pass a bill so the WI tax payer would pay them to do it. (more sarcasm)
Mar 8, 2013 at 11:33 a.m.
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http://alphaleon.files.wordpress.com/201...
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