By Matt Vincent Right now, everything is seemingly within the iron grip of the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Our daily lives have been redefined by the government’s response. As of Tuesday, April 15, Montana has 404 confirmed cases, 50 cumulative...
By Tim Hilmo, Project Manager, Atlantic Richfield Company With minimal headlines, treated water was discharged from the Butte Mine Flooding site to Silver Bow Creek for the first time starting on September 30, 2019. Water from the Berkeley Pit is being treated at the...
By: Matt Vincent The Berkeley Pit viewing stand ordinarily sees as many as 300 visitors each day when it’s open, making up for around 35,000 visits a year. A couple of weeks ago, there was one “out of the ordinary” new development at the viewing stand. Members from...
I remember opening my first edition of PitWatch at my grandpa and grandma Lester’s dining room table as an 11-year old in 2002. The publication in those days was as fresh as it could be; it contained the latest water levels and flow updates, even breaking news about...
Berkeley Pit August 2018. Photo by Kayla Lappin, Clark Fork Watershed Education Program. Pitwatch.org Reimagined I remember opening my first edition of PitWatch at my grandpa and grandma Lester’s dining room table as an 11-year old in 2002. The publication in those...
• It is estimated that many thousands of migrating snow geese stopped in the Berkeley Pit the week of November 28, 2016. The number of migrating geese that passed through this area and landed in the Berkeley Pit is unprecedented. Most geese left the pit on Tuesday...
The rate of rise of water levels in the Berkeley Pit and connected monitoring points is affected by many factors, including rain and snowfall and occasional ‘sloughs’ or ‘slumps’ of material from the Pit’s sidewall slopes. The most recent slough occurred on February...
Since the Berkeley Pit was designated as a Superfund site in the 1980s, things have gone largely as expected. In one instance the site remedy has proceeded at a faster pace than mandated in the 1994 Record of Decision (or ROD, available in its entirety here). The ROD...
Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield are currently funding a Montana Tech graduate student to develop a remote system to sample Pit water quality. The student will review options to collect the required data, including aerial or water-based drones that can be...