NATION
Photo by U.S. Bureau of Land Management ( Wikimedia Commons)
MODEL RESTORATION Nonprofit group buys Montana ranch to inspire cleanup of region scarred by mining STORY BY THEA HASSAN
D
ry Cottonwood Creek Ranch looks like any other Montana ranch: Cattle graze on lushly vegetated fields as a creek meanders through grassy terrain. Despite the scenery, it’s one of the largest federally recognized contaminated areas in the country. A non-profit environmental group, with the help of two private investors, purchased the ranch — located north of Butte, Mont. on the Clark Fork River — to serve as a model for environmental restoration. Butte is home to the Berkley Pit, a one square-mile pond that holds a murky, reddish metal wastewater containing byproducts of the town’s mining origins. Due to the acidity of the pit, boats and sirens are used to chase away waterfowl to prevent their deaths. The region has been involved in mining since the early 1900s; small mines still operate today. Extracting precious minerals left copper, cadmium, lead, zinc and arsenic embedded in the soil. Mining operations often disposed of the byproducts, called tailings, in earthen dams and riverbeds. Cadmium and arsenic are a human health risk, while zinc and copper contaminants pose risk to plants.
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On the outskirts of town, the evidence of the disposal techniques is hard to miss: expansive patches of sandy contaminated dirt called slickens scar the surroundings. The lack of vegetation is coupled with an absence of wildlife. A massive flood in 1908, the result of a big spring melt and days of heavy rain, washed the contamination from small mines in Butte and a smelting site in nearby Anacadona. It was spread throughout the Clark Fork River watershed, said Brian Bartkowiak, Superfund site manager for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. For the cleanup, the basin is divided into three portions. The ranch is in the most contaminated section. The Clark Fork Coalition has been involved in the restoration of the Upper Clark Fork River since the coalition formed in 1985, said director of the group Karen Knudsen. The Coalition is a group of citizens, scientists, landowners, business leaders and public officials dedicated to the cleanup and preservation of the Clark Fork River Basin. The challenge of cleaning up the metal contamination is significant, and the group decided to register the area as a Superfund site. The federal government established the Superfund