Deadline for Reserve

For the past seven years, Minnesota's Reserve Mining Co. has successfully fought all attempts to stop it from dumping taconite wastes containing asbestos-like fibers into the waters of Lake Superior. Now, Reserve may have reached the end of the line. After having discharged 67,000 tons of wastes into the lake at Silver Bay every day since 1968, the company has been ordered by U.S. District Judge Edward Devitt to stop the dumping by midnight next July 7.

Devitt's order will be appealed. But it could mark the end of a fight that began in the 1960s, when it became apparent that the taconite tailings were affecting the nearby waters. They were not, as the company had contended they would, falling harmlessly to the bottom, but dissolving and releasing into the water nutrients that accelerated the growth of algae. Later studies disclosed that the tailings were also rich in asbestos-type fibers, which turned up in the drinking water of nearby communities, most notably Duluth (pop. 93,000); asbestos has been shown to cause cancer in workers who inhale fibers.

Last year an appeals court found that Reserve's discharges constituted a threat to the health of nearby communities; it held that the plant could be ordered closed if the state and the company did not agree on an acceptable alternative. Reserve, which is jointly owned by Republic Steel and Armco Steel, said that it could develop a dumping site at a location three miles from Silver Bay. But the state's Pollution Control Agency argued that this site, which involved the construction of a dam, also posed risks to Silver Bay. It rejected the site and recommended a location 13 miles further from the plant. The company said the second site would be too costly. Faced with the impasse, Devitt started the clock on Reserve.

Reserve has reacted angrily to the ruling and, as it has in the past, threatened to close the Silver Bay plant rather than invest in waste-disposal programs that it says could result in an operating loss of $2.3 million per year. Local residents still hope that a compromise can be reached; shutting down the plant would throw 3,200 employees out of work in an area where there are few other jobs. That prospect has already cast a pall over Silver Bay (pop. 3,500); nearly every family in town has at least one member working at the Reserve plant. In fact, many of the town's residents, believing that their community is doomed, fear they will have to apply for welfare. Says Robert Kind, 45, a Silver Bay councilman and Minnesota state trooper whose job is not dependent on Reserve: "I'll be around to shut the lights out and shut the town down."

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