| Chapter 1: | The Milltown Cleanup |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
downstream, and much of that sediment became trapped behind the rebuilt dam.
The magnitude of upstream mining and the resulting contamination are difficult to grasp. As an example, during the single year of 1887, over 78 million pounds of copper were produced from the Anaconda Claim (Montana Department of Environmental Quality, Remediation Division, 2004). Mine tailings and wastewater from the smelting process were released directly into local creeks, carrying with them lead, cadmium, zinc, arsenic, and mercury. As demand for electrification grew during the early decades of the twentieth century, the need for copper wiring surged and the mining operations in Montana grew to enormous proportions. The Washoe Smelter at Anaconda was completed in 1918. It remains the largest smokestack in North America, standing some 585 feet in height, having a top diameter of 60 feet, and (at capacity) producing 4 million cubic feet of emissions per minute (Wright, 2000). In addition to damaging aerosols, the smelter produced mine tailings, furnace slag, and flue dust—all of which accumulated in Warm Springs, a primary tributary of the Clark Fork River. By the 1960s, approximately 100 years of mining and milling wastes had been released into the Clark Fork drainage system.
Numerous legislative acts in the 1960s and 1970s impacted the mining industry. The Clean Air Act (1963) lent federal muscle to mandates calling for the cleanup of smelting operations, and the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) ultimately required resolutions to groundwater contamination problems. Importantly, Montana's newly reformed constitution (ratified by voters in 1972) provided for a “clean and healthful environment” as an “inalienable right” of its residents (Article II). The Washoe Smelter was closed in 1980, but not before it left as its total legacy: 230 million cubic yards of concentrated mine tailings, 30 million cubic yards of furnace slag, 500,000 cubic yards of flue dust, and 300 square miles of contaminated soils (Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee, 2005a).
In 1981 (see table 1), a series of events—public, private, official, and otherwise—were set in motion when county health officials recorded