"After years of neglect, the site of the long-closed U.S. Steel Duluth Works may be be on the verge of revitalization.

Following decades of steel and cement production, the industrial property along the St. Louis River in western Duluth has the unfortunate distinction of being the most widely contaminated site to be identified in all the Great Lakes Rust Belt, according to Erin Endsley of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Endsley has been tapped to serve as project leader of a federal Superfund cleanup of the industrial wasteland which is estimated to harbor more than 1.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment, both on solid ground and submerged throughout an adjacent estuary. That’s enough material to fill 103,125 four-axle dump trucks. If parked bumper to bumper, that number of trucks would form a line that stretches from Duluth past Chicago."

Peter Passi reports for the Duluth News Tribune August 29, 2015. [2]