The Taming of the Berkeley Pit by Dick Maney documents the construction of the Polishing Plant that was designed to filter mine water to a point that it could be safely discharged into Silver Bow Creek. The process, the construction, and the reasons for the Polishing...
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...
• 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...
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...
The guiding documents for Pit management require ongoing assessment and evaluation of the Horseshoe Bend Water Treatment Plant and the technology used to treat contaminated Pit water until several years prior to full-scale implementation. That implementation is...
Maps from the Montana Bureau of Mines & Geology (MBMG) showing Berkeley Pit-related alluvial and bedrock monitoring sites have been added to PitWatch.Org. View snapshots of the maps below, click on an image to view a larger version, or use the links at the bottom...
The Montana Bureau of Mines & Geology (MBMG) developed this computer model showing Butte topography and the corresponding underground tunnels from the years of historic underground mining. The red dots at the surface and red lines below represent vertical shafts,...