St. Louis River Interlake Tar Superfund Site

Industries have operated along the St. Louis River between Stryker Bay and Hallett Dock 7 for more than 100 years. The presence of residuals from this industrial activity caused the site to be declared a state and federal Superfund site in 1983. Of primary concern are PAHs, organic chemicals that resulted from coal tar production.

Visit the St. Louis River Interlake Tar website to view information, reports and maps related to the cleanup of this Superfund site.

Area of Concern
The lower St. Louis River is one of 42 Areas of Concern (AOC) in the Lake Superior basin. An AOC is a site that has serious environmental pollution problems that require remedial action and the development of a Remedial Action Plan (RAP) to outline ways to restore the area. See EPA GLNPO for more information on the Great Lakes AOCs. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has a web page that discusses contaminated sediments within the St Louis River.

A large publically owned wastewater treatment plant (Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, WLSSD) discharges below the potential RUSS site and the river carries a heavy load of suspended sediments from non-point sources. The river also has a number of sites known to contain contaminated sediments.

The lower St Louis provides good fish habitat and is an excellent warm water fishery. However, the recent invasion of exotic fish (Eurasian ruffe and round goby) may threaten native fish populations (see MN Sea Grant exotic species ).