Star Tribune
Once toxic soup, a Lake Superior estuary is now swim-worthy
DULUTH — A swath of the St. Louis River once teeming with toxic waste is now healthy enough for swimming.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Steel joined state and city officials Wednesday to celebrate the opening of a new waterfront recreation area in western Duluth’s Morgan Park. It was once the site of Duluth Works, U.S. Steel’s coking and mill operation.
The Superfund site that has been closed to the public for decades is transformed into acres of rolling green space with a new, walkable peninsula, a 2-mile extension of the Waabizheshikana Trail and safe habitat for both aquatic life and woodland creatures.
The $186 million cleanup and restoration of the Spirit Lake portion of the Lake Superior estuary — where chemicals and heavy metals were dumped for 50 years — took four years to complete.
“The Spirit Lake cleanup is the largest, most complex project conducted under the Great Lakes Legacy Act,” said the EPA’s midwestern office leader, Debra Shore. “This is an exciting day, a happy day, for everyone who loves the St. Louis River.”
The legacy act provides federal funding to clean polluted waterways known as Areas of Concern in the Great Lakes. Federal, state, tribal and local efforts to cleanse the St. Louis River and remove it from the national list of waterways have been ongoing for more than 30 years. In 2022, the EPA announced $113 million for three highly contaminated sites in the river, including the Spirit Lake area. Through a private/public partnership, U.S. Steel was responsible for 51% of the Duluth Works project, with federal funds covering the rest. The city has also invested in recreational improvements along the river.
Shore said more than 60% of the work needing completion to delist the river is done, putting it on track to be removed from the list by 2030.
In Spirit Lake, workers remediated more than 1.3 million cubic yards of material, leaving nearly 140 acres of cleaned riverbed. The area holds a shallow sheltered bay for fish and is now home to more than 360,000 aquatic plants.
The waterfront, which runs along the Lake Superior & Mississippi tourist railroad, will eventually be filled by native marshes. The ecosystem is now healthy enough for swimming, boating and fishing, said the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Peter Tester.
The agency, together with the state health department, will recommend that the area’s swimming restrictions be lifted, he said.
The St. Louis River spans the ancestral lands of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. A haven for migratory birds and spawning grounds for lake sturgeon and other fish, it was designated a National Water Trail in 2020.
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
