Summer 2010 Restoration Around the Clark Fork Basin

Butte

While the EPA Five-Year Review of Butte Superfund sites continues, reclamation and restoration work is still ongoing in the area. At the top of the Butte hill near Walkerville construction will be completed in 2010 on the Granite Mountain Memorial Interpretive Area. The Memorial itself is being expanded, and an already partially-completed trail will connect that area to the greater uptown Butte trail system. This new trail will provide the public with access to the historic Foreman’s Park near the Mountain Con mine yard.

Monitoring of stormwater and groundwater is also ongoing to insure that metals and other mining contaminants from the Butte hill do not recontaminate the restored Silver Bow Creek. New groundwater monitoring wells are being installed near the historic Silver Bow Creek channel, commonly known as the Metro Storm Drain, and also in Lower Area One on the west side of the Butte, where treatment lagoons capture contaminated groundwater and surface water to prevent contamination from reaching Silver Bow Creek.

Beyond 2010 the Metro Storm Drain and Lower Area One treatment lagoons will be evaluated; best management practices for stormwater will be implemented; the Butte Reclamation Evaluation System will continue to monitor capped mine dumps on the Butte hill to ensure that historic mine wastes are not spreading; and the voluntary Residential Metals Abatement Program will continue to assist residents in assessing and removing historic wastes present in Butte homes.

Work also continues on the restoration of Silver Bow Creek. Through the summer, crews are removing mine waste and restoring the creek through Durant Canyon and near Fairmont Hot Springs.
Above: A restored reach of Silver Bow Creek near Butte shows a developing riparian plant community.

Above: An unrestored reach of Silver Bow Creek near Anaconda has little vegetation along the streambank due to the presence of mine tailings; these acid and heavy metal-laden soils prevent most plants from growing. This reach is slated for restoration in the next 1-2 years.

Anaconda

A lot of clean-up is underway in Anaconda, including reclamation north of Warm Springs Creek near the Galen Highway; clean-up of the Airport property; and Montana DEQ will begin reclamation on Stucky Ridge. Clean-up also continues along rail lines and rail yards.

In 2010, EPA will begin the fourth Five-Year Review of the Anaconda Smelter site. Reviews address portions of the site where remedial construction has been completed and where EPA has determined the remedy is operational and functional.

Next door at Opportunity, management continues at the BP-Arco Waste Repository.
The site, formerly the Opportunity Ponds, was a tailings repository for the Anaconda Smelter. It covers an area of over five square miles, with deposits of mine waste averaging about 20 feet deep. Due to that considerable volume of contamination, wastes removed from elsewhere in the Clark Fork Basin are transported to the Opportunity Ponds site. Topsoils are then revegetated to reduce erosion.

During the five-year review of Anaconda sites, EPA and DEQ welcome public comments regarding Anaconda-area work, and comments may help to determine recommendations for the future. Citizens may send written comments through May 28 to:

Charlie Coleman
Remedial Project Manager
10 West 15th Street, Suite 3200
Helena, MT 59626; or

John Brown
Superfund Project Officer
P.O. Box 200901
Helena, MT 59620-0901.

Milltown Area


At the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork Rivers, the last trainload of contaminated sediments left the Milltown site on September 24, 2009. Work still continues at the site to restore the historic stream channel. The Clark Fork River is currently diverted until that work can be completed. Once that work is done, restoration of the greater confluence site will begin.

The Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee (CFRTAC) has a wealth of additional information on their website at http://www.cfrtac.org/.

The EPA Take a Look Back at the Last 5 Years of Butte-Area Clean-Up

Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and its consultants from CDM, are in the midst of a mandated Five-Year Review of Superfund sites stretching from the city of Butte down Silver Bow Creek as far as the Warm Springs Ponds. The review is a regular checkup on a Superfund site to ensure that clean-up decisions continue to protect people and the environment. Given the number of environmental issues at play in the Butte area, from capped mine dumps on the Butte Hill to signs of recontamination in Silver Bow Creek to the still-untouched West Side Soils area, the review committee will be busy. The review is expected to be completed by September 2010.

In addition to talking with on-site workers and local officials, the review committee is also interviewing Butte citizens to get their take on how environmental clean-up efforts in the area have succeeded or fallen short. The Citizens Technical Environmental Committee (CTEC), Butte's EPA-funded and citizen-led community Technical Assistance Group, recently held two public meetings on February 24 and March 3 to provide the public with information about the Five-Year Review process, the status of Butte-area Superfund sites, and to collect comments from the public.

At the Feb. 24 meeting at the Butte Public Library, Dr. John Ray, a Montana Tech Liberal Studies Professor, discussed what is known as the Butte Priority Soils Superfund site, which includes the urban areas of Uptown Butte. Contamination a the site includes historic mine waste, mine tailings, and residential soils and dust related to the area's mining history. Contaminants of concern include heavy metals such as lead and mercury and other toxins such as arsenic.

Ray was highly critical of EPA-led clean-up efforts in this area. Ray stated that the EPA decision to leave the "waste in place" by capping rather than removing mine waste has resulted in capped dumps that require ongoing maintenance to prevent the failure of the caps and the exposure of waste. Because of the urban nature of the area, exposed mine waste could potentially impact human health. According to Ray, the majority of mine dump caps have failed. Capping generally involves covering exposed mine waste with 18 inches of topsoil that is then seeded and monitored for erosion issues. Butte-Silver Bow county annually evaluates and repairs these caps, with the expenses paid by ARCO, the EPA mandated responsible party for the site.

Ray also criticized the EPA decision to fence-off or otherwise restrict access to many environmentally damaged sites in the Uptown, preventing local residents from accessing such areas and being exposed to wastes. Ray particularly emphasized environmental justice as an important component of any Butte clean-up, noting that the majority of those living in the Superfund area fall below the poverty line or have below-average income. Ray noted that the EPA has a mandate to consider environmental justice. EPA personnel on hand at the meeting did not agree with Ray's assessment of environmental clean-up on the Butte Hill.

(Photo above shows a capped Butte mine dump in the foreground as evaluators assess the site, and in the background uncapped mine dumps can be seen behind the fence of the Mountain Con mine yard.)

At the same meeting, Ian MacGruder, a consultant from Kirk Environmental working with CTEC, delivered a presentation about the clean-up of Silver Bow Creek, the Warm Springs Ponds, and the Westside Soils, an area to the north and west of Uptown Butte that is listed as a Superfund site due to the presence of numerous mine dumps. No action has been taken at the Westside Soils site to date. EPA considered it a low-priority because no people live in the area, though it is popular for recreation.

MacGruder discussed the success of the Silver Bow Creek restoration, which was led by the State Department of Environmental Quality in conjunction with EPA. That project has been largely successful in removing historic mine wastes from the creek bed and floodplain. The ecosystem seems to be on the road to recovery, and brook, rainbow and native west slope cutthroat trout have been reported during Fish, Wildlife and Parks annual electrofish monitoring of the once-decimated creek. Restoration of the creek is still ongoing in the Anaconda and Durant Canyon areas. (Photo above shows historic tailings deposits on Silver Bow Creek. This site, near Miles Crossing and Durant Canyon, has since been restored; the tailings pictured here now reside in the Opportunity Ponds, aka BP-ARCO Waste Repository.)

Removed Silver Bow Creek wastes are transferred by rail to the Opportunity Ponds, also known as the BP-Arco Waste Repository. The Repository, a former tailings pond for the Anaconda Reduction Works and Washoe Smelter, already holds millions of tons of historic wastes, and wastes removed from Silver Bow Creek and the Milltown site near Missoula have been transferred there, increasing the total volume of waste at the site by a few percent. (Photo above shows an aerial view of the Opportunity Ponds site, which is roughly 5 square miles. In some places, mine wastes are 40+ feet deep. The yellow color comes from the tailings themselves; they are toxic to vegetation, so few plants grow, although revegetation efforts are ongoing at the site.)

Recent data has shown that some contaminants from the Butte Hill in the form of sediments are reaching the restored Silver Bow Creek. It is likely that additional action on the Butte Hill and continued monitoring and management of contaminated Butte groundwater will alleviate this recontamination in the future. For the time being, contaminants mainly flush down the restored reach of the creek to the Warm Springs Ponds.

The Warm Springs Ponds, another former Anaconda Company waste management site, were created to capture contaminants from Silver Bow Creek, preventing them from reaching the Clark Fork River. The site has been extremely successful in that regard, and has also become an excellent habitat for waterfowl and abnormally large trout. Future plans for the management of the Warm Springs Ponds, however, are somewhat murky. There is also a lingering arsenic issue at the ponds; lime is added to Silver Bow Creek water to cause metals present in the water to settle out in the ponds by reducing the acidity of the water. This reduction in acidity has the unfortunate side effect of mobilizing arsenic, and data indicates that arsenic levels flowing out of the ponds into the Clark Fork River are higher than expected. As long as no one drinks from the Clark Fork, this should have little effect on human health, although the arsenic issue will have to be addressed in the future.

EPA Remedial Project Manager Roger Hoogerheide responded to the presentations by noting that, while in the past the Five-Year Review process has been something of a rubber-stamp formality, the current EPA administration has instructed agency personnel to treat the Five-Year Review seriously and thoroughly as a means to improve ongoing clean-up efforts.

When asked about the relative scarcity of discussions of the Five-Year Review in local media, Hoogerheide agreed that there was more the EPA could do to inform and involve the community. The ongoing citizen interviews are a large part of the EPA's increased public relations efforts on this Five-Year Review.

The Mar. 3 meeting at the Butte Chamber Visitors Center featured the same presentations, although for this meeting the Silver Bow Creek/Warm Springs Ponds presentation was delivered by Montana Tech Society and Technology Professor Pat Munday. The community discussion was somewhat more lively at this meeting. Most citizens present expressing frustration with the pace of Butte-area clean-up and the difficulty in finding answers to Superfund-related questions and in participating in area Superfund-related programs like the Multi-Pathway Residential Metals Abatement Program Plan. That program is designed to mitigate potentially harmful exposure of residents to sources of lead, arsenic, and mercury contamination. EPA personnel at the meeting again expressed a renewed commitment to public outreach to ensure that local residents are connected to and informed about ongoing clean-up efforts.

Local citizens are encouraged to comment on the clean-up of the Butte environment. Written comments can be mailed to:
Roger Hoogerheide
Remedial Project Manager EPA Montana Office
10 W. 15th St.
Helena, MT 59626

For more information on the Five-Year Review, call Wendy Thomi, EPA Community Involvement Coordinator, toll free at 1-866-457-2690

(Photo above shows historic mining and smelting in the city of Butte, which accounts for the contamination we see and manage today.)

Milltown, Montana: Film Creates a Cultural Portrait of Western Montana

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture must be worth considerably more. Judging by his latest work, I believe Rainer Komers must have taken that old adage to heart. His film Milltown, Montana takes the motion picture genre on a journey of “poetic minimalism”. What this meant became clear to me when I spoke with Rainer prior to the screening, and he mentioned that the film had no dialogue and no score. Considering my minimal exposure to "avant-garde" film, I couldn't help but be skeptical. The screening at Montana Tech attracted an audience of about 50 people, quite a few more than I was expecting.

What I noticed as I watched the film is how little I missed the traditional narration and accompanying soundtrack. Komers captures these “acoustic soundscapes” to go along with the visuals, which are greatly enhanced by his considerable acumen behind the camera thanks to his years of experience as a cinematographer. The sounds are vivid enough to capture your attention, with an abstract musicality that can be hypnotizing at times.

I found that the absence of a narrator allowed the viewer to become an impartial observer, free to draw their own conclusions as to the meaning of what they were seeing. Some of the sights I recognized throughout the film were shots of the M&M sign, The Legion Oasis, the Clark Fork Watershed, the State Prison and various snapshots of everyday life in the region. There was a billiards scene in the Legion that garnered quite a few laughs, an injection of humor I wasn't quite expecting.

In another review of the film in the Missoulian, the author seemed very upset that the film did not tell the story of Milltown in particular. As Komers explained to the audience during the Q&A session, the title is meant to be generic, to describe any region that has been through the growing pains of the industrial age. He explained this by relating a tale of coal mining in his native Germany, where the towns have similar problems with pollution and mining. My personal interpretation was that the film seemed like it was intended to be a snapshot in time, a cultural portrait with minimal bias. The film was only 30 minutes long, but managed to capture the essence of many aspects of life in Montana in that short time.

The region around Butte has the distinct privilege of having two films made about it in a short period of time. Milltown, Montana may not have the historical scope of the much acclaimed Butte, America, but it offers a more intimate portrayal of everyday life in post-industrial Montana. The two films compliment each other, one telling the story of the past, the other showing how residents deal with the repercussions of that past, from an outsiders perspective. Komers has a talent for being the outside observer, presenting a way of life without the usual editorial spin. I would consider Montana lucky to be included in his impressive body of work.

For a complete listing of Komers film work, visit: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0464624/

-Guest Blog by Aaron Briggs
Montana Tech Professional & Technical Communications Student

Mining the Highlands

While Montana’s wide-open mountain vistas, relatively undisturbed wildlife habitat and peaceful, windy quietude have risen among the top of the state’s golden treasures, there is still plenty of interest in the kind of gold currently fetching over $1,000 per ounce on the worldwide metals market. Just 15 miles south of Butte in the heart of the Highlands Mountains, Timberline Resources is making way for a new, 750,000+ ounce underground gold mine. The Idaho-based newcomer to the mining industry began laying the groundwork in August for what the corporation hopes to be a 10-year project that could employ up to 100 workers. Timberline stock (TLR) began trading on the NYSE back in May and has sold just shy of 36 million shares of its 44.5 million cap, trading most recently at $1.24.

So how does a mine that could employ 100 people and that has sold over 35 million shares on Wall Street go relatively unheard of in a mining community of 30,000 people just miles away? Timberline began working in August and has been progressively forging ahead ever since under an amended exploration permit and a small mine exemption, both granted by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s Hard Rock Mining division. Neither of these processes require an official public comment period or a full-scale environmental impact study. Timberline presented the project to the Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners in May and most recently in October at the National Summit of Mining Communities in Butte.

This project has a lot of costs and benefits for The Mining City and the surrounding areas that will need to be weighed by our citizens prior to the commencement of full-scale operation, as awakening community awareness has just recently begun to pique public interest. According to Timberline’s website (http://www.timberline-resources.com/) the mine properties consist of approximately 1,100 privately-owned acres situated along the Continental Divide at the headwaters of Basin (Upper Clark Fork Watershed/Butte drinking water supply), Fish (Jefferson River Watershed) and Moose (Big Hole River Watershed) Creeks. Under the current exploration and small mine development permits, approximately 50 acres will be disturbed at the site, over one-mile of underground tunnel dug and a 10,000 ton “bulk sample” collected over the next year. The ore is approximately 0.27 ounces of gold per ton. For more information, visit the Timberline Resources website above, or contact Robert Crohnholm with the DEQ at (406) 444-4330.

-Matt Vincent

Science Cafe: The Science of the Berkeley Pit

To someone driving through Butte, Montana for the first time, one image dominates the landscape: the expanse of the Berkeley Pit to the north. The Pit extends 1700 feet from the top of the rim near the old Bell-Diamond Mine to the bottom of the over 40 billion gallons of acidic water that make up the slowly rising Pit Lake.

The sheer magnitude of the site, a functioning mine from 1955 until 1982, is enough to draw attention. But the environmental science underlying the Berkeley is the real cause for interest.

From the early days of underground mining in Butte, the hill has been dewatered by underground pumps. Those pumps ran continuously from the late 1800s until 1982. When economic conditions forced the Berkeley Pit to close, ARCO, the parent company of the Berkeley, decided to shut off those underground pumps.

The result is the Berkeley Pit Lake we see today. Without the pumps to keep the thousands of miles of tunnels beneath the Butte Hill dry, surface runoff and seeping groundwater began to accumulate, eventually reaching the bottom of the Pit. Throughout the 80s and 90s, the water level in the Pit continued to rise, and today the Pit Lake is over 1000 feet deep.

The water in the Pit is highly acidic, with a pH of about 2.5. A process called Acid Rock or Acid Mine Drainage is the culprit. Not all of the rock extracted from the Butte Hill and the Berkeley is valuable. A high percentage is waste rock, and a considerable amount of waste rock still sits behind the Berkeley to the north and east.

Rock from the Butte ore body is high in sulfur, mainly in the form of iron pyrite or fool’s gold. When exposed to air and water, the iron pyrite is oxidized. Mixed with surface and ground water, the sulfur increases the acidity of the water. This increased acidity, in turn, causes the other metals present in the rock, such as copper, lead, cadmium, and zinc, to dissolve into the water.

In the case of the eastern slope of the Butte Hill, all of this Acid Rock Drainage water flows, either over the surface or through a natural cone of depression in the ground water table, into the Berkeley Pit Lake. In this way, the Berkeley is not all bad: the collection of acid water there prevents it from spreading elsewhere where it could potentially impact the Butte valley or, just downstream, the Clark Fork River.

While the Berkeley water is certainly toxic, it is not as deadly as some suppose. The acidity of the Pit, with a pH of 2.5, is about the same as the acidity of your favorite soft drink. In other words, the Pit water is not going to instantly dissolve anything that touches it. There have been incidents of bird deaths in the Pit resulting from birds drinking and swimming in the Pit water continuously for more than a day. Today, hazing activities prevent birds from spending too much time in the Berkeley.

The main human health risk from the Berkeley involves the possibility that the water level may some day rise high enough to infiltrate into surrounding ground water aquifers. Such an occurrence could potentially contaminate drinking water wells, or contaminate ground and surface water downstream.

The critical water level at which Berkeley water could spread out from the Pit is 5410 feet above sea level. The surface of the Pit Lake currently sits at 5282 feet above sea level. As the water level rises only a few feet each year, that leaves a lot of time before the critical level is approached. Current projections estimate that the Pit Lake will near the critical level some time after 2023.

A strategy is already in place to manage the Pit water when that time comes. In 2003, construction was completed on the Horseshoe Bend Water Treatment Plant on the northeast rim of the Pit (as pictured below). Already tested and used in Montana Resources nearby mining operations, the Treatment Plant will pump and treat the Berkeley Pit water before it reaches the critical level.

The water is treated by adding materials, primarily lime rock, that reduce the acidity. As the acidity decreases, the metals and other toxins dissolved in the water settle out in a solid “sludge.” This leftover sludge will be dumped into the Pit, in effect, backfilling it very slowly. Treated, clean Pit water will be used in Montana Resources mining operations or discharged into nearby Silver Bow Creek (pictured below just downstream and to the west of Butte and the Berkeley).

While the visual and scientific spectacle of the Pit is essential to our current understanding of it, the most important legacy of the Berkeley cannot be seen at the Pit itself. Over 300 million tons of ore came out of the Berkeley, and the copper from that ore gave electricity and light and development to the U.S. and beyond. The next time you flip on an electric light in the middle of the night, take a second to remember the Berkeley Pit, and the true cost of the development we enjoy and often take for granted today.

Want to learn more about the Berkeley Pit, past, present, and future, as well as other environmental reclamation projects around the Butte area? Join Justin Ringsak for a Clark Fork Watershed Education Program Science Café discussion on the Berkeley Pit on Friday, Oct. 30 from 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. at the Venus Rising Espresso House, corner of Park and Main in uptown Butte.

Community Rallies‘Round Silver Bow Creek

During a sunny April evening at the Butte Chamber Visitor Center on the banks of Blacktail Creek, Butte musician Mike Tierney sang about Evel Knievel while a group of eager Cub Scouts and other kids dove into sample buckets of live aquatic bugs from Blacktail and Silver Bow Creeks. Other youngsters drew colorful sketches on the sidewalks with the assistance of artist Shawn Crowe from the Butte-Silver Bow Arts Foundation. As the kids learned the basics of stream assessment, their parents and other local citizens learned about the past and future of the Silver Bow Creek restoration from local community members and agency representatives active in the restoration process. Through the work of the Citizens Technical Environmental Committee (CTEC), the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee (CFRTAC) and CFWEP, Butte came together to show support for restoration at the Rally ‘Round the Creek.

While CFWEP was on hand to provide stream bugs and to run a mini-field trip on basic stream assessment, presentations on Silver Bow Creek by Ian Macgruder from Kirk Engineering and Jim Kuipers from Kuipers & Associates were the centerpiece of the Rally. Ian and Jim are the technical advisors to CTEC and CFRTAC, respectively, and they discussed the Superfund process, which is not exactly speedy, and potential recontamination issues to keep in mind as the community looks toward the future of Silver Bow Creek.

Historically, Silver Bow Creek was used by Butte mining interests as an industrial sewer to remove mine tailings wastes from the immediate area, causing them to settle in the creek channel and throughout the floodplain. The sandy looking material in the Google Earth image below is tailings.

Ongoing remediation and restoration has removed tailings from the floodplain and streambed. Clean soil is hauled in, and the channel is then rebuilt and revegetated.

Restored sections of Silver Bow Creek like this reach near Ramsay show vast improvement in terms of vegetation and water quality.

Different sites along the Upper Clark Fork River are being remediated and restored on different schedules. In an ideal world, the clean-up would proceed from the headwaters around Butte and Anaconda downstream to Deer Lodge and the Milltown Dam near Missoula. In reality, Superfund is a complex process that involves a lot of negotiating between the Environmental Protection Agency, the State of Montana, local governments, and the Potentially Responsible Parties, or PRPs, a technical term for the private companies liable for environmental damages.

Due to the nature of the Superfund beast, downstream sites like the Milltown Dam and portions of Silver Bow Creek are being restored prior to completion of work on the primary sources of contamination around the Anaconda smelter site and the mine dumps of the Butte hill. While a lot of good work has been done downstream and around the headwaters, because mining and smelting wastes in Butte and Anaconda are being left in place and treated on site, the potential for recontamination of Silver Bow Creek and the Clark Fork from surface runoff, while low, does certainly exist. CTEC and CFRTAC are committed to keep the communities of the basin informed of such issues as the restoration continues to move forward.

Restoration doesn’t occur overnight, and even when completed, monitoring and maintenance are necessary to ensure the long term health of the environment. By coming out to support the success of the amazing Silver Bow Creek restoration up to this point, and by looking to the future, Butte and the surrounding communities are cruising right along on the road to environmental recovery.

• Read about the Rally in The Montana Standard here.
• Get the latest Silver Bow Creek update from the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality and the Natural Resource Damages Program here (pdf file).

Underground Tale of the Pasty

The CFWEP hosted a teachers workshop for its Milltown Dam and Clark Fork Virtual Education Portal (formerly "the trunks") this weekend at the Bonner School in Bonner.

We were treated with 27 teachers, eager to learn and very interested in hearing the science, stories and lessons of the Upper Clark Fork.

Upon a few individuals request, below is the recount of the story behind the Cornish pasty: staple food of underground miners for centuries and one of the trademark tastes of The Mining City....enjoy the story, and your next pasty!

When trying to teach kids about subjects that might seem complicated, like science, it always helps to use anecdotes that relate to things they can easily understand. In working with the students of the Upper Clark Fork basin, helping them to learn the health affects of some of the toxic substances found in mining wastes, like arsenic, lead and mercury, I’ve made it a point to use Butte’s hallmark entrée, the pasty.
Of course, we all like to think of the pasty being as Butte as Butte can be. However, just like the mining that made our town famous, the pasty too hails from some place else. Cornwall, England. The rich tin and copper mines in this southwestern-most region of the Old Country can be traced to 2000 B.C. Mention of the Cornish pasty can be found as far back as the 1200s. Mining’s importance in their culture can be summed up with a common Cornish definition: “A mine is a hole anywhere in the world with at least one Cornishman at the bottom of it.”
When mining began to peter out in Cornwall in the late 1800s, the “Cousin Jacks,” as they were known, emigrated to the mining meccas abroad, like Michigan’s Copper Country and of course, Butte, to carry on their historic skills. They also brought with them the pasty.
So how do you explain the human health affects from heavy metals and arsenic through a hand-held meat and potato pie? It turns out that the Cousin Jacks didn’t eat pasties just because they tasted great and were more filling than most other lunches you could take underground.

Talk to anyone who’s worked below, or take a peak at a historic photo of the working folk from Butte’s heyday: Underground mining is a dirty business, perhaps the dirtiest of them all. A shift underground would cover you from head to toe and then some in the mine’s dirt, dust, muck and mire. And although they were mining copper, silver, tin, whatever the moneymaker happened to be in the rock, there came with it all the other geologic tagalongs not so desirable, like arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, toxins that will eventually wreak havoc on a man’s health.
The two major pathways for these poisons to make it into our bodies is either breathing it in (inhalation) or eating it (consumption). Once a man went underground to work, there wasn’t any coming back up to the surface until the end of his day, unless he came up dead or maimed. In the days before respirators and dust masks, there wasn’t much a miner could do to keep from inhaling the metals-laden dusts, save for holding his breath – an impossibility over an entire shift. Many figured that inhaling the dust through the filter of a cigarette was better than nothing – even though there were “NO SMOKING” signs posted in the Butte mines in 16 different languages. And there certainly weren’t any faucets or trusted methods of washing away the grime from your face or hands before lunchtime.

Prior to the pasty, miners in Cornwall probably ingested an equal amount of poison for every bite of nourishment he ate. Chronic diseases from arsenic, lead, mercury and other heavy metals poisoning like cancer, ulcers and Mad Hatter’s disease were traced to the ingestion of these ubiquitous mining toxins early on. That didn’t mean a miner was going to stop eating underground. Hats off to the wives of Cornwall for fashioning a tasty solution to the problem.
The traditional Cornish pasty had a pinched crust much thicker than the ones on the pasties we eat today. The large, thick crust on the side of the original pasties was put on to serve as a handle, something the miners could hold on to with their filthy hands, while they ate the rest of the pie untouched and therefore, untainted with whatever might be clinging to his fingers.

Another note of difference between today’s pasty and the original is that the first pasties usually had rutabagas or turnips in them along with the standard meat and potatoes. Some wives added an extra treat: a compartment that held a fruit filling at one end to serve as “dessert.” When the miners were finished eating the filling, all they had to do was chuck the crusty handle and go back to work. It was also said that the throwing of the crust into the mines was a token of bribery or maybe even respect to the underground spirits or “knockers.” The knockers were blamed for knocking down big rocks, the “Duggans,” from above, under which many an underground toiler perished. The miners figured the ruthless spirits would be less likely to do so if their presence was acknowledged by the tossing of a tasty scrap of crust and perhaps a quick Hail Mary. There were well over 2,000 men who died in Butte’s underground mines over their operation. Only the knockers know how many pasty crusts were left behind and eaten.

So the next time you don’t have the time or facilities to wash your dirty hands before eating lunch, grab on to a pasty and don’t forget to leave the crust behind. Your body will thank you and so will the knockers.

Fall Fieldtrip Season Closes with a New Student Record

The fall fieldtrip season has come to a close and with it another great season with our students. As the restoration work continues to move downstream, so do our fieldtrip sites that serve as examples of a stream impacted by tailings. This fall we moved to Silver Bow Creek near Opportunity – next door to the newly built visitor’s center on Route 1. Thank you to Shelley Holland, MT DEQ for allowing us access to that site. Students monitored that site observing vegetation, water quality and macroinvertebrates. Students also monitored Silver Bow Creek in a restored section upstream of Rocker for a contrasting comparison to the tailings in Opportunity. 175 7th graders and 38 9th graders from Butte monitored those sites and each left with an imprint in their minds of what tailings next to a stream looks like, and what it looks like after tailings are removed. We hope it is a site they will remember. 32 students from Drummond school also joined the fieldtrip season monitoring sites in Garrison and Drummond.

Fieldtrip leaders who lead the fieldtrip stations with students are really what make our fieldtrips great. This year our fieldtrip leaders were: From CFWEP staff and student help, Justin Ringsak, Rayelynn Connole, Eric Henrich, Sabira Farrow and I. Volunteers included Dave Salo, US Forest Service, Carly Gibson, US Forest Service, Raj Kasinath, Montana Tech, Joe Griffin, MTDEQ, Rich Prodgers, Bighorn Environmental, Christina Talley, Montana Tech, Debbie Smith, Montana Tech, Kenda Herman, US Forest Service, and Billie-Jean Reynolds, Retired Teacher.

This year’s success with students can be marked with a new student record. CFWEP offers assistance for students interested in continuing their learning in the watershed with research projects or involvement in local projects. This year a record 20 7th grade students all from East Middle School have requested assistance in continuing their research in the watershed. Each student will be matched with a science mentor to complete their science fair project. Students will be meeting afterschool Wednesdays starting November 5th. Each week we will work through a portion of their project. They will meet with their mentors outside of this time. By February students will all have completed their projects. Anyone interested in working with these students as either a mentor, or help with the sessions is welcome!

-Jen Titus, CFWEP Field Coordinator

Seeking Volunteers for Willow Cutting

CFWEP, in collaboration with the Butte-Silver Bow Arts Foundation and the National Folk Festival, are seeking volunteers to assist in gathering willow cuttings in the Butte area that will be used as art materials for Family Area Activities at the 2008 National Folk Festival in Butte on Saturday and Sunday July 12 and 13. We will provide volunteers with all necessary equipment and transportation to cutting sites. Volunteers are also welcome to come to willow cutting events at any time during the two scheduled cuttings (i.e. you don’t have to be there all day- if you can pitch in for an hour or two, we would appreciate it!). Site locations are To-Be-Announced. To sign-up, or for more information, contact Justin Ringsak, CFWEP, 406-496-4897, jringsak@mtech.edu. Thanks!

Willow Cutting Dates:
Monday June 16, 2008, Noon-5pm
Monday July 7, 2008, 2:30-5:30pm

Seeking Teachers & Students to Work as2-Week Summer Field Evaluators for theButte Reclamation Evaluation System (BRES)

The CFWEP is seeking interested teachers and students to work in paid positions as summer field evaluators on Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit reclaimed sites. Five selected teachers and five selected students (high school, undergraduate or graduate level) will have the opportunity to collect monitoring data about the reclaimed Butte environment and gain valuable experience in practical field science. Participating teachers will also have the opportunity to earn OPI renewal credits.

• Participants will receive a one-week (Mon-Fri) BRES field evaluation training and become certified BRES field evaluators.
• Teacher-student pairs will each perform a field evaluation of BPSOU sites for a one-week (Mon-Fri) period.
• Teacher-student pairs will be responsible for inputting their week of field data into the BRES database. Database entry will be on the Monday after the end of each pair’s evaluation week.
• Teachers will be required to prepare a data summary report of their week in the field with their student; students will be required to assist in preparation of summary report and to perform one or both of the following tasks: prepare a summary report of their experience; and/or develop a science fair/research project using the skills and expertise gained in the summer experience.
• As an addendum to the summary report, teachers will be required to submit one lesson plan and/or field activity curriculum product to be used in their classroom based upon their experience.
• CFWEP staff will provide technical support and assistance throughout the project.
• All necessary equipment will be provided.
• Each participating teacher will receive a stipend of $1,500. Up to 40 OPI renewal units are available and offered free of charge.
• Each participating student will receive a stipend of $750.
• The deadline for applications is Thursday, June 5th, with successful applicants notified no later than Friday, June 6th. Training will be held during the following week, June 9th-13th. Teacher-student pairs will then be assigned dates to conduct field evaluations based on availability and BRES requirements.

To apply:
Contact Justin Ringsak, CFWEP Public Education Coordinator, at 406.496.4897, or email jringsak@mtech.edu.

Volunteers of the Month Marko Lucich & Tom Malloy

Ahoy, CFWEP followers! The program is pleased to announce its newest honoree as Volunteer of the Month. First of all, let’s be clear, the “of the month” designation has lost its punctuality, and even though we will continue to call it our “VOM” award, it will be given out on a more “every other month” basis. The “Volunteer of the Every Other Month Award” just doesn’t have a great ring to it, though, considering this is coming from the already unwieldy acronym “CFWEP.”

This month, the CFWEP has decided to give our prestigious award to two individuals for the first time. Congratulations to the Butte Chamber of Commerce’s Marko Lucich and Tom Malloy of Butte-Silver Bow City-County as Co-Volunteers of the Month!

Marko is the director of the Butte Chamber and has graciously provided his Visitors Center on George Street, free of charge, as a first-stop for visiting classrooms to The Mining City, not to mention the headquarters for the CFWEP’s volunteer training workshops. Marko also gives the CFWEP the key to the Berkeley Pit Viewing Stand, allowing us to bring students to the area’s favorite Superfund site all through the year.

Tom is an environmental engineer and the Reclamation Manager for Butte-Silver Bow City-County. Tom has been volunteering with the CFWEP in various capacities for the past few years. Particularly, in the last few months, he has arranged for two middle and elementary school classroom visits to the Anselmo Mine hoist house and mine yard, hosted an environmental studies group from Billings on a tour of Butte restoration sites and, most recently, spent a day in the field with 75 Butte seventh graders on Silver Bow Creek, no easy feat for anyone.

The CFWEP greatly depends on the expertise and cooperation of professional scientists like Mr. Malloy and the flexibility and generosity of local citizens like Marko and his organization in order to successfully continue its educational endeavors with the youth of the Upper Clark Fork Basin. Thank you very much, Tom and Marko!