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CLAUDIA DALY: To the people of three states and two countries who live along its shoreline, Lake Superior is a living presence. More than any other feature of the landscape, natural or man-made, the big lake dominates consciousness and creates mood. It is more than resource. It is, in all ways, source.

On June 15, 1973, the people most vitally concerned with Lake Superior and others, some of whom seem unconcerned, learned that the clear cold waters of their lake had been infiltrated by mineral fibers identified as asbestos.

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A Sense of Place, a documentary series which looks at regions and regionalism in the state of Minnesota, produced by Minnesota Educational Radio under a grant from the Minnesota Humanities Commission. This program is called Water-- Words and Music.

Shock, anger, charge, countercharge-- words spoken and written about Lake Superior about pollution, about health, about how officials respond to critical situations in their communities. Some of the words you'll hear in this program were written about the water crisis, which followed the revelations of June 15, 1973. Others are drawn from a play dealing with a similar situation occurring in a coastal town in Norway in the mid-1800s. Still others are the efforts of researchers, biologists, magazine writers.

CAROL ANN HALL: From Mirage of Health by René Dubos. "Life is an adventure in a world where nothing is static, where unpredictable and ill-understood events constitute dangers that must be overcome often blindly and at great cost, where man himself, like the sorcerer's apprentice, has set in motion forces that are potentially destructive and may someday escape his control.

Every manifestation of existence is a response to stimuli and challenges, each of which constitutes a threat if not adequately dealt with. The very process of living is a continual interplay between the individual and his environment, often taking the form of a struggle resulting in injury or disease."

From Henrik Ibsen's drama, An Enemy of the People.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Well, now the town will have something new to talk about, I can tell you.

SPEAKER 1: Something new?

KATRINE: What is this?

THOMAS STOCKMANN: A great discovery, Katrine.

SPEAKER 1: Really?

KATRINE: Oh, a discovery of yours?

THOMAS STOCKMANN: A discovery of mine. Just let them come saying as usual that it is all fancy and a crazy man's imagination. But they will be careful what they say this time, I can tell you.

PETRA: Good Father, tell us what it is.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Yes, yes, only give me time, and you shall know all about it. If only I had Peter here now. It just shows how we men can go about forming our judgments when in reality, we are as blind as any moles.

HOVSTAD: What are you driving at, doctor?

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Isn't it the universal opinion that our town is a healthy spot?

SPEAKER 1: Certainly.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Quite an unusually healthy spot in the fact, a place that deserves to be recommended in the warmest possible manner either for invalids or for people who are well?

KATRINE: Yes, but my dear Thomas--

THOMAS STOCKMANN: And we have been recommending it and praising it. I have written and written both in the messenger and in pamphlets.

SPEAKER 1: Well, what then?

THOMAS STOCKMANN: And the baths. We have called them the main artery of the town's lifeblood, the nerve center of our town, and the devil knows what else.

HOVSTAD: The town's pulsating heart was the expression I used once on an important occasion.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Quite so. Well. Do you know what they really are, these great splendid, much praised baths that have cost so much money? Do you know what they are?

SPEAKER 1: No. What are they?

KATRINE: Yes, what are they?

THOMAS STOCKMANN: The whole place is a pest house.

KATRINE: The baths?

PETRA: Our baths?

HOVSTAD: But, doctor, it's absolutely incredible.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: The whole bath establishment is a whited poison sepulcher, I tell you, the gravest possible danger to the public health. All the nastiness further up the river, all that stinking filth is infecting the water in the conduit pipes leading to the reservoir. And the same cursed, filthy poison oozes out on the shore, too.

CLAUDIA DALY: From the Duluth Herald, Friday, June 15, 1973. "A tight lid of secrecy was clamped today on federal and state officials investigating discovery of an asbestos-like mineral in Lake Superior. Wraps were put on all parties by US Judge Miles Lord, who is hearing a suit involving the federal government and reserve mining company over alleged pollution of the lake from reserve's taconite plant at Silver Bay.

In Duluth this morning for a meeting of the Minnesota State Board of Health, Dr. Warren Lawson, executive director of the State Department of Health, said federal water studies of Duluth's water supply have revealed the presence of minerals that are chemically related to asbestos.

He says he does not believe anyone yet knows however whether the minerals have the same physical characteristics as asbestos, whether they are fibrous in nature or if the presence of the mineral, hydrated silica, is necessarily related to reserves discharges. He said a meeting of federal and state officials has been called for Monday in Governor Wendell Anderson's office on the subject.

'I guess everybody is trying to decide what the significance of the findings is,' said Lawson. 'The fact is that nobody knows what the significance is.' He says, 'Health data is available on the problems asbestos causes when inhaled. It is said to be cancer producing but there is now no data available on what problems it causes when ingested.'"

TOM AMUNDSEN: St. Paul Dispatch, June 15, 1973. "Mayor Ben Boo of Duluth said today that the report of the asbestos-related materials in the Duluth drinking water did not surprise him and did not unduly alarm him.

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He said that he had heard about these reports on Lake Superior water and on Duluth drinking water earlier, and that Dr. Lawson's statement on it did not attach any great significance to it. Mayor Boo said, 'I stand on Dr. Lawson's statement in this matter. He is the expert. We have to be calm about this matter. Last month, we had the mercury scare in Duluth. Everyone was in a panic about mercury, and then it developed there is nothing to it. We have to go slow on this report.'

Boo then said that the information about the asbestos-like chemicals was introduced in the reserve mining court case in federal court in Minneapolis as evidence to strengthen the PCA's case against reserve. Edward Schmidt, assistant to the president of reserve, said today, 'It is unfortunate that this unfounded charge has been made public without testing its validity. Reserve will do everything in its power to see that the public learns the truth as quickly as possible.'"

CAROL ANN HALL: An Enemy of the People.

ASLAKSEN: I have learned in the school of life and experience that moderation is the most valuable virtue a citizen can possess.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Hear, hear.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah.

ASLAKSEN: And moreover, the discretion and moderation are what enable a man to be of most service to the community. I would therefore suggest to our esteemed fellow citizen, who has called this meeting, that he should serve to keep strictly within the bounds of moderation.

SPEAKER 3: Three cheers for the moderation society.

SPEAKER 4: Shame.

ASLAKSEN: No interruptions, please. Does anyone wish to make any remarks?

SPEAKER 5: Mr. Chairman, the mayor will address the meeting.

PETER: In consideration of the close relationship in which as you all know, I stand to the present medical officer of the baths. I should have preferred not to speak this evening, but my official position with regard to the baths and my solicitude for the vital interests of the town compel me to bring forward a motion.

I venture to presume that there is not a single one of our citizens present who considers it desirable that unreliable and exaggerated accounts of the sanitary condition of the baths, and the town should be spread abroad.

[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

TOM AMUNDSEN: Duluth News Tribune, Saturday, June 30, 1973. "Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, head of the Environmental Sciences Laboratory of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, was to arrive in Duluth early today to head a team making detailed studies of the situation. He had originally planned to spend eight weeks, but US Judge Miles Lord has ordered the work completed in two weeks.

Francis Neil, head of the Chicago Regional Office of the EPA said Monday that reports that the work could be done in two weeks were quotes, 'clearly optimistic,' unquote. Dr. Selikoff is to study the tissues of cancer victims who have consumed Duluth water and compare them with tissues of those who did not."

Saturday Review, Society, March 1973. "While the effects of asbestos-related diseases are in themselves fearful, the prospect of the toll they may take in Manville, New Jersey, in the near future is even more so.

In the next few years, physicians, who have studied the problem, predict the number of deaths resulting from asbestos-related diseases can be expected to reach near epidemic proportions. This is so because the gestation period for asbestosis and mesothelioma ranges between 20 and 40 years. Hence, workers, who joined the plant in the late 1930s and 1940s, are just now beginning to suffer the consequences.

A study of 689 Johns Manville employees that was released May 1972 showed that out of 70 men and women who had worked at least 20 years in the plants, formerly very dusty textile division, some 24 of them or 34% had died. This death rate is nearly triple that of a similar group in the general population.

I was told by Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, director of the Environmental Sciences Laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and the scientist who conducted the study, the next 5 or 10 years are going to be rough in Manville because a lot of people are going to be dying. And so far, no one knows what to do about it.

Dr. Selikoff adds, 'What is tragic is that this is a man-made disease. It is not a visitation from heaven. It was preventable. The serious situation that now exists is a record of failure on the part of us all, scientists, industry, and governmental authority.

And industry is correct, in my opinion, in pointing out that what we're seeing now is a result of our mistakes in the past. Having said this, I would urge the most intense efforts to ensure that we do not continue to make these mistakes. Too many men and women have died of our blunders already.'"

CLAUDIA DALY: From the Duluth News Tribune, June 30, 1973. "Treatment of water used in manufacturing products involving asbestos is a simple matter of using settling ponds and trucking away deposited effluents, according to an official of a major miner and miller of the material.

'Water used in manufacturing asbestos products goes into settling basins and is treated for P8, an index of acidity, and sometimes is chlorinated, said Ian Fenner, director of Environmental Affairs for Johns-Manville Corporation, Denver. 'In all plants,' Fenner said, 'JM maintains a very intensive hygiene program. All conditions are monitored, including dust, noise, and fumes. A close check is also kept on workers health.'"

ORRIN BERGEN: Saturday Review, March 1973. "While Dr. Selikoff and other medical researchers stressed health factors at the Labor Department hearing, asbestos industry spokesmen emphasized economic considerations.

Henry Bibb Marino, Johns Manville's senior operating vice president, asserted that to achieve a two fiber count level in all of its asbestos factories would cost about $12 million in capital expenditures plus some $5 million in additional operating expenses each year. 'This would mean,' he said, 'that the company would simply have to close down the dustier operations in the Manville plant and fire 800 employees, all but killing of the economic life of the town.'"

CAROL ANN HALL: Duluth News Tribune, June 19, 1973. "Irate residents of Silver Bay and Beaver Bay met with a combined village councils of each community Monday night in the Silver Bay municipal building to discuss the alleged contamination of Lake Superior water by asbestos fibers.

A standing room-only crowd of about 60 persons jammed the small conference room, while many others listened from a hallway, and still others peered over the shoulders of councilmen from the doorway of an adjoining room. The question and answer session preceded a regular council meeting and consumed about 1 and 1/2 hours.

Wayne Johnson, attorney for the villages of Silver Bay and Beaver Bay, briefed those in attendance on a meeting held Sunday in Duluth at the national water quality laboratory. Johnson said he feels the public has been subjected to unnecessary alarm. 'I'm not scoffing at the possible hazard, but I think the alarm was sounded prematurely for such explosive information.

He said experts throughout the country have studied the water for depositions in the suit against reserve mining company and none has mentioned finding asbestos. One man, Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, finds asbestos in a preliminary study. And with one word, cancer, he panics the citizens,' Johnson said.

According to Johnson, the alleged finding is a political ploy by the Environmental Protection Agency to scuttle the reserve mining trial, and many citizens expressed the same belief. The majority of residents attending seem to be more concerned about the effect on local tourism than the actual possibility of contamination.

Several complained that officials involved were irresponsible in releasing the information prematurely, and fully one half hour was spent tongue-lashing the news media for causing a panic. One older man felt all officials involved should be relieved of their jobs because they have done irreparable damage to the North Shore through their statements."

ORRIN BERGEN: Saturday Review, March 1973. "Why throughout the '50s and '60s did men and women continue to work in the plant if conditions were so hazardous? The answer would seem to have as much to do with psychology as with economics.

Chester Roszkowski, a 41-year-old machinist and union shop steward at the plant, says, 'It's funny, but the only people who seem scared of this stuff come from outside the community.' To Roszkowski, who has worked at the plant since he was 18, his job is a way of life that he is not about to give up just because of a few scare stories in the press.

CAROL ANN HALL: Duluth Herald, June 22, 1973. "Restaurants are still putting tap water on the table, and most people are still drinking it. With some exceptions, a spot survey of Duluth eating places and bars shows local patrons don't appear too concerned about recently disclosed findings of asbestos fiber material in the city's drinking water. Some tourists, however, have expressed fear of the water drawn from Lake Superior, even to the point of considering it poisonous.

But in general, it's business as usual as typified by this comment by Joseph Osaki Jr., operator of the Pickwick. 'There has been no change. It's like cigarettes. There's a warning on the package that cigarettes may be harmful to your health, but people still smoke them. We had one woman customer who said she wouldn't drink the water, but ordered a cup of coffee, which is made from the same water.'"

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CLAUDIA DALY: A letter to the editor from the Duluth News Tribune, Monday, June 25, 1973. "Sir, I don't know about you, but ever since the asbestos bombshell fell, I've been doing a lot of soul searching. That lake out there, my lake, is in trouble, and I'm heartbroken. Who ever dreamed such a nightmarish dream? How could it happen?

Well, the results aren't in on the test, but nevertheless, we are all asking questions, aren't we? And who is guilty? Well, I for one. I voted for that Taconite Amendment years ago. Now, the ramifications are partly my responsibility. But most of all, I failed to vigorously support the Save Lake Superior Association. How long have they been out there like John crying in the wilderness, asking questions, demanding on land disposal? How long?

And so I would like to make public my sincere apologies. I'm sorry, Save Lake Superior Association. I'm sorry, you babies and children who are drinking bottled water. And last but not least, I am so sorry, God. What have I done to this sweet oasis you have given me? Connie Sundqvist, Duluth."

TOM AMUNDSEN: From an editorial in the Duluth News Tribune, Sunday June 17. "On the other hand, as sober-minded as the public has been throughout this long controversy, it seems important that the public continue to view this problem as rationally as possible. To close reserve immediately would simply add another major problem to the one we already have. It would mean instant unemployment for about 3,200 workers in Silver Bay and Babbitt with the predictable effects for their families."

CAROL ANN HALL: An Enemy of the People.

HOVSTAD: Well, what do you think of that, doctor? Don't you think it's high time we stirred a little life into all this slackness, and vacillation, and cowardice?

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Are you referring to Aslaksen?

HOVSTAD: Yes, I am. He's one of those fellows who are floundering in a bog, decent enough fellow though he may be otherwise. And most of the people here are in just the same case seesawing and edging first to one side and then to the other, so overcome with caution and scruple that they never dare to take any decided step.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Yes, but Aslaksen seemed to me so thoroughly well-intentioned.

HOVSTAD: There is one thing I esteem higher than that, and that is for a man to be self-reliant and sure of himself.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: I think you are perfectly right there.

HOVSTAD: That is why I want to seize this opportunity and try if I can to put a little virility into these well-intentioned people for once. The idol of authority must be shattered in this town. This gross and inexcusable blunder about the water supply must be brought home to the mind of every municipal voter.

CAROL ANN HALL: Duluth News Tribune, Thursday, June 28, 1973, a letter to the editor. "Sir, you should expose the pollution of beautiful Lake Superior, which belongs to all of us, and be unafraid exactly like the press, which exposed the Watergate. We are helpless by ourselves. And we dislike very much to sit back and do nothing, but our voice is lost in the wilderness.

When the press really tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God, it is not only the pollution of the lake that bothers us, but to think that they would spoil this beautiful lake that God gave to all of us with that black crud when it was not necessary. Whoever gave them the permission in the first place? Our politicians? One would have to be out of his mind to ever think of such a thing.

I am not prejudiced to the industry, but to think that they have done things that none of us would think of doing to this great lake of ours just for the gold. For heaven's sake, let's do something and expose the whole matter so that we can at least shame them into doing something about it and not put it off because they say it will cut employment. I was born and raised in the area, and what I see makes me sick. Louise Nissen Duwabek."

CAROL ANN HALL: An Enemy of the People.

ASLAKSEN: We shall proceed with the greatest moderation, doctor. Moderation is always my aim. It is the greatest virtue in a citizen at least I think so.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: It is a well-known characteristic of yours, Mr. Aslaksen.

ASLAKSEN: Yes, I think I may pride myself on that. And this matter of the water supply is of the greatest importance to a small tradesman. The baths promise to be a regular gold mine for the town. We shall all make our living out of them, especially those of us who are householders. That is why we will back up the project as strongly as possible. And as I am at present chairman of the householders association--

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Yes.

ASLAKSEN: --and what is more, local secretary of the temperance society, you know, sir, I suppose that I am a worker in the temperance cause.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Of course. Of course.

ASLAKSEN: Well, you can understand that I come into contact with a great many people. And as I have the reputation of a temperance and law-abiding citizen like yourself, doctor, I have a certain influence in the town, a little bit of power if I may be allowed to say so.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: I know that quite well, Mr. Aslaksen.

ASLAKSEN: So you see it would be an easy matter for me to set on foot some testimonial if necessary.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: A testimonial?

ASLAKSEN: Yes, some kind of address of thanks from the townsmen. For your share in a matter of such importance to the community, I need scarcely say that it would have been drawn up with the greatest regard to moderation so as not to offend the authorities, who after all have the reins in their hands. If we pay strict attention to that, no one can take it amiss I should think.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: Well, and even supposing they didn't like it.

ASLAKSEN: No, no, no, no, no. There must be no discourtesy to the authorities. There's no use falling foul of those who upon whom our welfare so closely depends. I have done that in my time. No good ever comes of it. But no one can take exception to a reasonable and frank expression of a citizen's views.

THOMAS STOCKMANN: I can't tell you, dear Mr. Aslaksen, how extremely pleased I am to find such hearty support among my fellow citizens. I am delighted, delighted. Now, you will take a small glass of sherry, eh?

CAROL ANN HALL: Mirage of Health by René Dubos. "Directly or indirectly, the various forms of art reflect the strivings, the struggles, and the sufferings of mankind. The state of health and the ills of a society are recorded not only in the writings of its physicians and scholars, but also in the themes and moods of its artists and poets."

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CLAUDIA DALY: Excerpts from the Mirage of Health by René Dubos, published by Harper Brothers, and the Henrik Ibsen drama An Enemy of the People from Norwegian state publications, Oslo. Music from Handel's the Water Music by the Bath Symphony Orchestra, an Angel recording. Readers were Orrin Bergen, Tom Amundsen, Carol Ann Hall, and I'm Claudia Daly.

A Sense of Place was written and produced by Claudia Daly for Minnesota Educational Radio under a grant from the Minnesota Humanities Commission. Engineering by Glenn Owen.