News & Articles

The Duluth News Tribune editorialized Jan. 24 that “We’re finally finding out” about roughly 1,457 barrels of military wastes that were secretly dumped by the Corps of Engineers into Lake Superior along the North Shore between 1957 and 1962.
The editorial went so far as to claim that “several rounds of searching, including this latest large-scale effort, have turned up nothing of concern. Zero. Zip.”
This re-write of historical fact is odd, since it was the News Tribune itself that reported on Sept. 22, 1994 “Barrels contain toxins.” On March 7, 2013 the DNT reported, “Tests of the barrel contents at that time also revealed trace amounts of 15 toxic chemicals including PCBs, barium, lead, cadmium and benzene.” Ron Swenson, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s barrel project manager said in 1994, “I guess we’re most surprised about the PCBs. We simply don’t know why they were in the barrels that were tested.”    
Col. James T. Scott, then district chief of the Army Corps, and Charles W. Williams, then director of the MPCA, wrote in the DNT Dec. 12, 1994: “Some barrels brought up had some hazardous wastes.” Nothing of concern my eye.
Today the Tribune dismisses criticism of misstatements by the Army Corps of Engineers, Honeywell and the MPCA as “conspiracy cries.” But its staff was once justifiably skeptical of reassurances issued by all three. In 1994, after decades of denials, Honeywell was shown to have used radioactive uranium, plutonium and thorium at its Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant — the source of the barrels — beginning in the 1950s. The revelation prompted the DNT’s John Myers to condemn the MPCA which, he wrote, had for years been “either mistaken or untruthful.” (Nov. 20, 1994)
Now, without digging any deeper, the DNT’s Jan. 24 editorial does spotlight one glaring example of official dis-information or conspiracy. “Many doubted the government’s story that the barrels contained nothing more than scrap and metal from a 1950s grenade project.” True enough — and the recovered PCBs, benzene and chromium proved those doubts justified.
Yet the unexpected recovery of Cluster bomb parts in 22 of 25 recovered drums hasn’t seemed to raise a DNT eyebrow.

Cluster Bomb Parts Found in Barrels Demand New Line of Inquiry

The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa retrieved 25 barrels in 2012 and has released some results of its analysis of the contents. Although the DNT reported Jan. 22 that “no toxins” were found, the Band’s environmental director Melanee Montano told me Oct. 15, 2012, “there were sure contaminants.”
The Band’s announcement last March that cluster bomb parts were in the barrels only reinforces public skepticism and dubiousness toward declarations of “all clear.”
Never in four decades of reportage on the scandal has there been a hint that Cluster munitions were in the barrels. The Corp officially dumped only “classified scrap and other debris from the manufacture of m-32 grenades.”
Last July 26, I asked Red Cliff’s environmental director Melanee Montano, “Wasn’t the discovery of cluster bombs a surprise?” “It definitely was,” she said.
Indeed, the discovery demands a completely new line of inquiry. Honeywell’s cluster munitions were manufactured in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, long after the official end of the Army’s Lake Superior dumping program.
The drums containing Cluster bomb parts are either completely separate from the 1,457 admittedly dumped by the Corps, or the Army and Honeywell have been caught lying again about what it disposed.

Where is the transparency that Red Cliff promised?

The Cluster bombshell moved me to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to Red Cliff. I’d like to see the underwater photos and the data upon which the Band has based its public announcements.
That was in August 2013. I’m still waiting.
Red Cliff’s Montano informed me in October that the Band could not pass on my FOIA request unless the Army Corps of Engineers Okayed it. Red Cliff’s data is in its hands now.
So we’ve come full circle, and the Army is back in charge of who can know what it knows about what it did in secret.
The barrels retrieved by Red Cliff are supposed to be at least 50 years old. Are there serial numbers, codes or date stamps on any of the retrieved drums or Cluster bomb fuses? Any date more recent than ’62 puts another large hole in the Army’s official narrative.
The DNT says that “Rumors and conspiracy theories continue to circulate about the barrels’ contents.” Yes, and the Army can all the take credit.

— John LaForge works for Nukewatch and wrote its special report on the barrels “Drinking Water at Risk” which is at <nukewatchinfo.org>