More money going to St. Louis River cleanup

New money is coming to the St. Louis River clean-up program in northeastern Minnesota.

The clean-up effort has been going on for decades, and now officials have set a goal of completing the work by 2025. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's Lake Superior unit supervisor Nelson French said agencies will use about $2 million of federal money and about $1 million in state money to plan the next steps.

"There's a little bit of work related to actual project activity. A lot of it is also doing the necessary front-end design work to make sure we understand how much it's going to cost to actually do all the work that needs to be done," French said.

Among other things, the new money will help design and monitor a pilot project that uses dredge material to build shallow-water habitat in a western neighborhood of Duluth.

"This is a potential win-win scenario," French said.

The pollution in the St. Louis River is a legacy of decades of industrial activity before the era of modern environmental regulations.