100 Years...

Anaconda Mining company made a big mess with their copper mine in Butte, Montana. The open pit mine that exists today under the name "Berkeley Pit" is deeper than you can imagine. The toxic water in it is deep enough to cover the empire state building, and toxic enough to kill a flock of geese that landed on it years ago.

The city of Butte no longer fetches its pails of water from its own aquifer, the water is too toxic, since the water in the Pit is actually the Aquifer exposed like blood welling up in a wound. The copper operation was enough to provide the bulk of the copper our nation used to fight WWII and the wire produced from it helped enable the electrification of the country. The process caused the highest priority Superfund Site in the country. The stretch of river from Butte to Missoula is obstructed by only one flimsy dam at Milltown, not far upstream from Missoula.

The Milltown dam was engineered with logs and not very strong. Years ago it ceased to produce a useful amount of power and its turbines barely cranked out enough to keep the booth on the dam lit up at night. This dam, like all dams, was destined to break in a flood event releasing all the water backed up in the reservoir and all the sediment stored up behind the dam. The difference with the Milltown dam, was that the sediment behind the dam was filled with heavy metals, copper, and arsenic that had made its way downstream from Butte. A flood that bashed all of this directly into Missoula would have contaminated our aquifer as well.

Instead, the Dam was removed today! It's been an ongoing process that has taken years, to dredge the poisons out, store them, pile them or otherwise dispose of them, and to divert the water, and who knows what else.

The Backhoes broke open a channel alongside the remaining portion of the dam and the waters flowed free for the first time in 100 years.

"100 years" an old man said to himself as he watched from the crumbly bank. He then turned around and mysteriously turned away.

"People in future generations will never know this dam was here." Ashley said and mysteriously walked away.