Tamarack Reclamation plant

Abstract

A dredge brings up submerged tailings from copper milling for reprocessing at Torch Lake, Michigan. A reclamation plant was associated with the Tamarack Mining Company Mill, one of three mills sharing a site in Tamarack City (Tamarack Mills) near Torch Lake in Houghton County, Michigan. It has been estimated that over half of the 5 million tons of copper ore produced in the Keweenaw Peninsula was processed in this area. Mill tailings from the area's stamp mills and smelters were disposed of by dumping them into Torch Lake, eventually amounting to some 200 million tons of tailings. Reclamation, or reprocessing of the tailings by chemical means, was practiced by the copper industry starting in the 1910s. Waste sands from the mills were dredged from the lake bed and the reclamation plant processed them to recover the copper missed in the initial stamping process. The chemically treated tailings were then dumped back in the lake area. The Tamarack mill was in operation until 1917, after which the Calumet & Hecla Consolidated Copper Company acquired the properties and dismantled the mill in 1920. Other mills in the Torch Lake area continued to operate into the 1960s. The Tamarack reclamation plant was still in operation during the 1940s. Torch Lake was designated an EPA Superfund site in 1986.