Nemadji River

A BNSF Railway freight train crosses the Nemadji near Boylston, Wisconsin.

The Nemadji River is a river rising in Pine County, Minnesota, United States, which flows through Carlton County, Minnesota, and Douglas County, Wisconsin, to Lake Superior.^[1] The river is 70.8 miles (113.9 km) long measured from its source in Maheu Lake in Pine County, and 34.9 miles (56.2 km) from its confluence with the South Fork in Carlton County just east of the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.^[2] The Nemadji River empties into Lake Superior in an industrial neighborhood at Allouez Bay in the city of Superior's east-side neighborhood of Allouez and Wisconsin Point.

Most of the rivers' length flows in Douglas County, WI, entering near Foxboro and exiting in East End, Superior, near Loons Foot Boat Landing, USH 2/53, and the BNSF Taconite Plant

Nemadji comes from the Ojibwe language, "ne-madji-tic-guay-och" (Nemanjitigweyaag in the current spelling), meaning "left-hand river,"^[3] opposed to the St. Louis River, which when viewed from Allouez Bay is the "right-hand river."

In 1992 a Burlington Northern train derailed south of Superior, releasing 30,000 gallons of aromatic hydrocarbons, a highly toxic chemical, into the Nemadji River. Fish, wildlife and other resources were severely affected by the incident. In March 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a draft that would use funds received from a settlement with Burlington Northern to restore a portion of the Lake Superior basin affected by the incident. The river runs through the City of Superior, Town of Summit, Town of Superior, and the counties of Douglas, Carlton, Pine.

References

Sources

• Nemadji River Basin Project, Carlton Co. SWCD
• Nemadji River Home Page
• Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment for Natural Resource Injuries Resulting from the Nemadji River Spill
• Columbia Gazatteer - Nemadji River
• Waters, Thomas F. (1977), The Streams and Rivers of Minnesota, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0-8166-0821-0