Disposed Ammunition Recovered, Then Disposed of Again?

Red Cliff, Wisconsin Last summer the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior (a Chippewa Tribe) and their support contractor recovered 25 barrels from the Lake Superior Barrel Dump Site under a DoD funded project. The barrels reportedly contain thousands of old detonators but the Tribe was unable to properly dispose of the material since there are no federally approved facilities authorized to receive hazardous explosive materials on the Great Lakes.

The Tribe did not have the proper permits in place to transport the material on land through Minnesota or Wisconsin so the Tribe and the contractor had no choice but to re-package the detonators into six bright orange containers and dump them back into the waters of the Great Lakes. GPS positions were recorded; plans for follow up retrieval and proper disposal of the containers are pending based on the Tribe's ability to get a federal waiver to transport and process the explosive hazardous waste.