SUPERIOR — An unusual sight greeted commuters on the Bong Bridge around 9 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 1.
A large fountain, or geyser, of water bubbled up from the St. Louis River east of Clough Island, reported to be 20 feet tall. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office responded to the call at 9:09 a.m. Aug. 1, according to a report by Deputy Dana Jensen.
The culprit wasn’t a northern variant of the Loch Ness Monster, a surfacing whale or hydrothermal vent. It was caused by a hole in an underwater pipe.
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Beneath the St. Louis River, between Superior and Duluth, runs a section of a 20-mile pipeline that brings Lake Superior water to the Sappi paper mill in Cloquet.
“If you look on a Google Maps aerial view, you can see how that would be the quickest from point A to B. Rather than going through Minnesota, we actually cross Wisconsin boundaries and then back into Minnesota again,” said Ross Biebl, assistant public works director for the city of Cloquet.
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Biebl called the waterline, which has been in service since 1969 and dips under water three times, an “engineering marvel.”
The line begins in Lake Superior with 48-inch-diameter pipes that feed into a pump station on Park Point. The pipes then narrow to 36 inches in diameter to travel under the Superior Bay, through Superior and under the St. Louis River. The water is moved on to a pair of reservoirs in Minnesota and a second pumping station near Spirit Mountain before narrowing to 30-inch-diameter pipes for the final leg of the trip to the paper mill, which includes one more trip under the St. Louis River. The water travels through Duluth, Superior, Proctor, Midway, Thomson and Cloquet.
The water carried by the line is not potable; it’s used in mill processes and then returned to Lake Superior following treatment at the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District. The waterline brings anywhere from 10 to 12 million gallons of water to the paper mill daily, Biebl said.
Contributed / Cloquet Public Works Department
The problem Aug. 1 was a roughly 8-to-10-inch hole in the top of the underwater pipe. Troubles with the underwater section of the waterline are rare.
“The last time we had an issue with the pipeline underneath the water was 1988 and it was actually in the same location,” Biebl said.
At that time, ice had lifted the structure surrounding the pipe and caused a leak at an air release valve.
“So they put a tapping saddle on it back then and some of the hardware, the bolts, have since rotted away and that’s what caused the issue for us last week,” Biebl said during an Aug. 6 interview.
The pipeline is currently shut down until the spot can be repaired. A diver inspected the site Monday, Aug. 5 to find out what the problem was. No cost estimate was available.
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“Now we’re going through the process of trying to find the right repair clamp for the pipe,” using new technology, Biebl said.
The paper mill, which employs approximately 720 people, according to its website, is still able to operate.
“They take water out of the St. Louis River during these types of outages,” Biebl said.
For a city the size of Cloquet, population 12,600, to operate a water pipeline of this size and magnitude is fairly rare, Biebl said.
“It definitely gives the city of Cloquet a lot more to handle and a lot more to deal with. But it’s definitely well worth it for us to be able to supply water to Sappi,” he said.
The city is responsible for any repairs on the water line. Cloquet has received $5 million from the state of Minnesota for water infrastructure improvements, Biebl said, and the city is currently in the planning process for how to spend those dollars.
A geyser eruption is triggered when the superheated water fills the geyser's plumbing system and the geyser begins to act like a pressure cooker. The boiling point of a liquid is dependent upon the pressure. The boiling point of pure water is 212°F (100° C) at sea level.
The eruption will continue until all the water is forced out of the tube, or until the temperature inside the geyser drops below boiling (100 degrees Celsius, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit, at sea level). After the eruption, water slowly seeps back into the tube.
In 2018, Steamboat Geyser entered a much more active period with 165 major eruptions recorded between March 15, 2018, and May 7, 2023 32 eruptions occurred in 2018, 48 in 2019, 48 in 2020, 20 in 2021, 11 in 2022 and another 9 in 2023. This broke 1964's record of 29 eruptions within a calendar year.
The hot water dissolves the silica and carries it upward to line rock crevices. This forms a constriction that holds in the mounting pressure, creating a geyser's plumbing system. As superheated water nears the surface, its pressure drops, and the water flashes into steam as a geyser.
Don't touch any water in or around thermal features. Never swim, soak, or wade in thermal features. More than 20 people have died from intentionally entering or falling into hot springs. Pets are not allowed in thermal areas, and you're better off leaving your pet at home.
An Old Faithful eruption lasts 1.5 to 5 minutes and reaches a height of 90-184 feet (27-55 m). The period of time between Old Faithful's eruptions ranges from 35 to 120 minutes, though the average is 92 minutes.
You may notice that water is leaking (with or without steam) from the pipe outside the geyser – either in small amounts or as a strong gush of water. Noise: If your geyser is under strain, you may hear humming, hissing or crackling noises. These are normally signs that your geyser will burst or even explode.
Steamboat Geyser is the world's tallest active geyser. It showers watchers and drenches the walkway. Days, months, or years pass between the major eruptions of Steamboat Geyser. Steamboat Geyser's major eruptions (more than 300 feet high) are unpredictable and often many years apart.
geyser, hot spring that intermittently spouts jets of steam and hot water. The term is derived from the Icelandic word geysir, meaning “to gush.” Geysers result from the heating of groundwater by shallow bodies of magma.
"If you have prolonged drought and there isn't enough water to feed these systems, then features like Old Faithful might sometimes stop erupting," he says.
Geysers are fragile. If their water source is cut off or the configuration of the fractures and cavities is altered, eruption intervals may change or stop completely.
Some hot spring systems have been drilled as deep as 8,000 feet. Even at these great depths, the water is mostly of surface origin. Thus, we infer that the water of the geyser-bearing systems circulates to depths of at least 5,000 feet and perhaps more than 10,000 feet.
No, most are not. Geyser water comes from deep within the earth where there are a lot of minerals that are not healthy for you. The water from geysers can contain all sorts of arsenic, radioactive heavy metals, chromium and mercury (among many others things), none of which you want to ingest.
The lifespan of an electric geyser depends on various factors such as quality, maintenance, usage frequency, and environmental conditions. On average, an electric geyser can last between 8 to 12 years, with proper maintenance and usage. However, some high-quality models can last up to 15 years or more.
It is impossible to predict the eruption time of most geysers because complex interactions take place between constantly changing factors. These include earthquakes, ongoing processes within underground channels, and fluctuations in a system's water or heat supply.
When water heats up the pressure inside a geyser is increased. The overflow or drainage pipe acts as a safety valve in most cases and once a geyser cools down things settle back to normal. Where this fails and the pressure inside your tank increases the tank can burst. In some cases, geysers have been known to explode.
Geyser eruptions are driven by the conversion of thermal to kinetic energy during decompression. In other words, water deep in the ground is heated up by nearby hot rocks, and when conditions are just right, and the pressure of the overlying rocks is released, the water will erupt out of the ground as a geyser.
When the water heater's temperature is set too high, thermal expansion of water increases pressure inside the tank to extreme levels. Sediment gathered in the bottom of the tank insulates, which can increase temperatures beyond a safe level.
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