Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2013
RED CLIFF, Wisconsin — Melanee Montano, Environmental Director at the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, reports that the Band’s Lake Superior Barrel Project intends to retrieve “overpack” barrels from Lake Superior beginning September 9, weather permitting.
The Band’s nine-year-long investigation of the dumping, between 1957 an 1962, of nearly 1,500 barrels of Honeywell, Inc.’s toxic military waste into the lake succeeded in recovering 25 barrels last summer. Twenty-two of the drums held explosive parts of what the Band said were cluster bombs (previous documentation of the contents reported they contained grenade parts). However, because the recovery project had not secured permits required to transport explosives, the band’s contractors onboard the research vessel Blue Heron placed the 15,000 explosive parts in 85-gallon “overpack drums” and put them back into the lake in about 200 feet of water.
Montano told Nukewatch August 30 that once the overpacks are recovered they will be transported under US Coast Guard authority to Cheboygan, Michigan where the cluster bomb parts are to be incinerated. — JL
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