SUPERIOR (WPR) Researchers say they've solved part of the mystery of the bacteria that's eating steel docks in Lake Superior ports: the biological organism apparently is not from outer space.

Not that there's anything funny about the damage this bacteria is causing to several Lake Superior ports. Duluth-Superior has 14 miles of steel pilings and dock walls, all of it pockmarked like Swiss-cheese.   Port officials say it'll cost a quarter of a billion dollars to repair it all.   

This breakthrough by the Naval Research Lab at the Stennis Space Center ends a 10-year mystery.  AMI Engineering Company President Chad Scott of Duluth says now that they have answers, they can fight this organism.

This fast corrosion comes in the cleanest of the freshwater Great Lakes. It happens because of copper dissolved into the harbor water, increasing the damage which is made worse by thick winter ice. Scott says “it’s not a real simple process.”

This mystery bacteria is damaging ports in Thunder Bay and Ashland but none in Lake Michigan or the lower Great Lakes.   Apparently they lack the copper content and thick ice. 

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Information from Wisconsin Public Radio, www.wpr.org