Government Records
Correspondence, reports, transcripts, exhibits, background files, and other legal, court, and research documents relating to permits and litigation over the Reserve Mining Company's waste control procedures, particularly its disposal of taconite tailings. They include joint permit hearings (1947) and amendments (1956, 1960), lengthy files on federal court proceedings (1972-1978), Milepost 7 tailings dumpsite permit proceedings (1975-1976), permit denial appeals (1976-1977), proceedings and studies of the Lake Superior Enforcement Conference (1969-1971), proceedings for reimbursement of filtration system costs (1977-1982), studies on the health effects of asbestos, and newspaper and magazine coverage (1947-1990).
These records are organized into the following sections, largely as established and numbered by the Attorney General's Office:
Materials found to be nonpublic were reviewed by the Attorney General's staff in 2013 and destroyed.
Accession numbers: 980-88; 982-59; 983-84; 983-173; 985-130; 985-168; 2003-58
Digital master of the film recording is maintained on the Society's secure digital collections storage servers and is managed and preserved in accordance with archival best practices.
Digital video transferred from the master film recording by the Minnesota Historical Society for preservation purposes (August, 2019)
Catalog ID No.: 1705857
Hearing transcripts, supporting exhibits, correspondence and background files documenting the original permit process in 1947. Also present are several files concerning amendments to Reserve's permit in 1956 and 1960. Boxes two and three contain material from Reserve, Oglebay Norton and Company, and the University of Minnesota Mines Experiment Station relating to the 1947 permit hearings obtained under the District Court order of July 31, 1975. Reports and files of Lorenz G. Straub, William D. Trethewey, and analysis reports on Babbitt area taconite samples also are included in this series.
Digital version
Film of RMC: portion relating to heavy density current.
This series documents Reserve's challenges to Minnesota and federal water pollution control legislation, particularly WPC 15. Reserve argues on the validity of the legislation, and when that fails, on its particular application to itself. Background files and exhibits document pollution of Lake Superior and other Minnesota waterways from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Hearing transcripts, exhibits, pleadings, and subject files also are included. The case is in Lake County District Court, Sixth Judicial District, File No. 05011, C. Luther Eckman, Judge. Also included is documentation of the Sierra Club's suit against the Minnesota PCA to force them to revoke Reserve's discharge permits due to their violation of water pollution standards.
Hennepin County District Court. Fourth Judicial District. File No. 662008. Sierra Club sued the Minnesota PCA in order to force them to revoke the discharge permits granted to Reserve Mining Company.
Conference transcripts, printed proceedings, statements, summaries, news releases, mailing and registration lists of the conference held to consider the pollution of Lake Superior in several sessions between May 1969 and April 1971. Also included are studies and papers on the pollution of Lake Superior dating from 1947 to 1974 and miscellaneous files and reports of several consultants (Bechtel, Parsons-Juden, and Trygve Hoff & Associates) hired to look into alternative tailings disposal plans for Reserve Mining Company.
Page 209 missing.
Pp. 1-249 (printed copy) and comments.
This series includes pleadings, depositions, transcripts of special hearings, trial transcripts, exhibits, health evidence files, background and subject files, and correspondence documenting the federal suit against Reserve Mining Company commencing in U.S. District Court in August 1973, Judge Miles Lord presiding. Everything brought forth in the trial, as well as voluminous research and reference files documenting the health hazards of asbestos is found in this series. Two sets of Reserve Mining Company reports to the Minnesota PCA (one chronological 1957-1973 and the other numerical 1-47) are found here as well as documents submitted by Wisconsin and Michigan, files on alternate ore supplies, files on the Palisade hearings during the summer of 1974, and documents pertaining to the Lax Lake site. Appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Eight Circuit [concerning merits of the injunction and other matters] as well as documentation submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court are found in this series as well. Several other cases concerning Reserve's attempt to have Judge Lord removed from the case, filtration issues [Roy Anderson vs. MPCA], appeals of fines and penalties, and tax issues concerning Reserve [Reserve vs. Arthur C. Roemer] round out this series.
(some room left in box)
Also includes Drs. Carl Peterson and Frederick Pooley's statements of April 1-2, 1974.
Numbers 38, 39, 44. and 74 are under court protective order.
Missing 2, 4, 5, and 6.
Appendix to No. 4 above.
Case began in Lake County District Court, Sixth Judicial District.
This series contains documents directly relating to the issuance of permits for the Mile Post 7 site, its construction, and its initial pollution monitoring results. Pleadings, reports, exhibits, and transcripts of hearings before hearing officer Wayne Olson are included. Numerous files concerning the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for Mile Post 7 are found here as are consultant reports and land appraisal reports. Boxes 21 and 22 contain confidential documents, originally protected from public view by court stipulation. Boxes 23-25 contain consultant reports from Klohn Leonoff Consultants Ltd., dealing with dam construction and monitoring, received from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Missing No. 42, No. 44.
59, 61, 64, 68-71 are in Confidential Files.
For Reserve's On-land Tailings Disposal Plan (MilePost 7).
DNR/PCA exhibit No. 103.
DNR/PCA exhibit No. 153.
Received from Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
This series concerns litigation brought by Reserve after hearing officer Wayne Olson recommended Mile Post 20 over Mile Post 7 and after the PCA and DNR denied permits for Mile Post 7 (July 1, 1976). The cases, largely identical (Reserve vs. PCA, Reserve vs. DNR Commissioner Robert Herbst), are tried in Lake County District Court, which orders the PCA and DNR to issue Mile Post 7 permits to Reserve in January 1977. The DNR and PCA appeal that decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which upholds the Lake County opinion to issue the permits on April 8, 1977. Pleadings, transcripts, depositions, exhibits, and subject files are found in this series.
Printed copy.
Morning session.
Afternoon session.
This series contains pleadings, subject files, correspondence, scientific publications, and reports supporting the claim that asbestos in the Reserve tailings was harmful to human health and that Reserve was responsible for the costs of water filtration for North Shore communities until an on-land tailings site was built. Material from the Royal Commission on Asbestos, on the history of North Shore water supplies (Duluth, Two Harbors, Silver Bay, Cloquet), on filtration plants, and publications concerning public health and asbestos exposure are found throughout this series.
Mostly U.S. District Court documents unless noted otherwise.
Three files are missing.
Newspaper clippings (photocopied) mainly from the Duluth News Tribune, Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and St. Paul Dispatch. Occasionally other state papers are included and from time to time articles from national papers, such as the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are included. While coverage is comprehensive for the years 1973-1978, the bulk years of the controversy, researchers should check the microfilm runs of the various papers if complete coverage is desired. This series also contains articles clipped from various national news magazines and environmental journals relating to the Reserve case.