Historic Smelter Slag Pot Identified--Dune Peninsula, Tacoma, Washington

This video features a 35-ton smelter slag pot. The location is the Point Ruston Dune Peninsula area of Tacoma, Washington, USA. This area had a copper smelter from 1890-1985. The purpose of the smelter was to refine copper ore from various mines near the Pacific Ocean. Gold also was recovered at the smelter. Barges loaded with copper ore were unloaded at Ruston, Washington (a town next to Tacoma and Point Defiance Park). The company operating the smelter was ASARCO--the American Smelting and Refining Company.
Slag is an industrial furnace waste product--usually from the mining industry. However, slag also can be waste materials from glass manufacturing, burning coal, and from other industrial furnace facilities. Originally, the material is liquid or molten. After recovering the economic gold, copper, or other metals from raw ore rock, the remaining molten material has comparatively no economic value. It is usually discarded nearby--often in large volumes. Depending on the ore or waste product, the composition of the cooled, solidified waste slag can vary substantially. The composition of many slag types often contain relatively high amounts of other metals, such as iron. But slag also can contain higher than normal amounts of arsenic, mercury, and other elements. High concentrations of toxic elements in discarded slag may create environmental hazard areas. Again, the composition of slag can vary widely. Glass slag generally would not contain an abundance of toxic elements. Note that the smelter in Tacoma is a well recognized area of industrial pollution. Much has been done to improve the site, and to contain toxins in the rock and ground.
This smelter slag pot, is currently laying on its side. Normally, the pot would be oriented upward to carry the molten slag on a rail car (like an upside down bell). The liquid slag was dumped into Puget Sound--in volumes to create a 23-acre industrial site along Commencement Bay (Puget Sound). Some of the molten slag also was dumped into Puget Sound, but the recovered and sifted into sand-size products, for sale as a sandblasting sand. Some of the rock- and- boulder size pieces of cooled slag, also were sold as landscaping and rockery wall rock (in the Tacoma area). There is some of this rockery rock slag--located as landscaping rock at the Evergreen U.S. Post Office (located near the Tacoma Shopping Mall), and at the Japanese Garden and other areas within Point Defiance Park (both areas are in Tacoma).
Note that various references state that this specific smelter slag pot is "similar to slag pots" used at the Tacoma smelter. I speculate that the slag pot was brought as an industrial feature at the Dune Peninsula Park, to remind of the local smelter history.
Note that Dune Peninsula Park is inspired by the science fiction novel, "Dune", by Frank Herbert. The smelter slag pot is a popular local photo stop along the park sidewalk, and often is used as temporary rain/wind shelter.
The ASARCO smelter area is a large industrial waste site. Normally, these abandoned industrial sites create an urban eyesores, that may be off limits for decades or potentially longer. The City of Tacoma decided to cap the abandoned industrial waste site--to limit pollutant leaching. This former industrial area is a prime real estate location, located along the shoreline of Commencement Bay. Therefore, the area became developed into an area of dense urban housing, commercial developments, and parks. The Tacoma area benefitted by improving the local industrial waste situation, while creating an economically valuable development, that will bring tax money to the city.
References: 1) www.thenewstribune.com/opinio... ; and 2) www.wa-rock.com/terraforming-... and 3) www.nwpb.org/2023/01/20/a-par... .
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Music (CZcams Audio Library): Final Girl (by Jeremy Blake)
Copyright by David Knoblach, © 2024. All rights reserved.

[@GeologyDude]

Hello Rock People! This is Dave the Geology Dude! There is more to this video than just a spinning slag pot. There are detailed notes in the description area of this video. If you want more, longer length rock identification videos are on my CZcams homepage. Check them out, or leave a comment here.

[@mafic_taco7061]

So cool!

[@GeologyDude]

Thx! It’s an item most folks normally can’t see. Also, it was a difficult location-lots of water near it that 360 degree programming doesn’t like