Rehab setback

ANACONDA - Contaminated sediment hauled from the former Milltown reservoir near Missoula to just west of Opportunity appears headed for cover.

The roughly 2.2 million cubic yards of waste is stubborn to grow grass after treatment, disrupting original plans to use the dirt as a cap over existing mine tailings in the Atlantic Richfield repository.

Instead, Arco and the Environmental Protection Agency may need to cap the toxic material with borrowed soil, a process that could take another two years.

Project leaders detailed these developments at a heated public meeting Tuesday in the Anaconda courthouse, stirring frustration from residents and county officials.

Jim Kuipers, county Superfund technical adviser, told The Montana Standard they had felt all but assured the Milltown sediment would grow vegetation when trains began hauling it over in 2007.

High metallic, nitrate and salt content actually made it more harmful than what was already at the repository, Kuipers said.

"We all drank the Kool-Aid that the sediment would grow," he said. "In the process, the possibility it would not work was underemphasized."

Anaconda no longer has any patience for experimentation, Kuipers said.

"I feel this county is behaving stupendously in light of the fact that these things keep happening," he said.

George Niland, spokesman for the Opportunity Citizens Protection Association, agreed the community is ready for development instead of setbacks.

Niland told The Standard they are fed up, and hear the same answers every time.

"We really thought this would be a great addition to that area," he said. "Turns out, we may be looking at more dust storms."

Arco has until March 31 to recommend soil capping or another plan to the EPA for approval. A final design would then be put together by the end of 2011 for work to begin in 2012.

Estimates come in at $10 million for a six-inch soil cap, and $20 million for an 18-inch cap. Arco is responsible for the cost.

EPA remedial project manager Charlie Coleman told The Standard they accounted for a contingent soil cap from the start, based on analytical data from previous testing.

The EPA was optimistic they could treat the sediment and grow vegetation, Coleman said, despite high levels of metals such as arsenic and lead.

Pyritic materials also created concern about the sediment's acidity in the future, he said.

Still, the EPA had successfully treated similar soil in the past, and its contingency lent a course of action if treatment failed.

"We knew we were working with some uncertainties," Coleman said. "I think what surprised us is how widespread the failure was."

Experts are still struggling to understand why the sediment won't grow vegetation. The sediment, which had been under about 30 feet of water at the reservoir, could have undergone unanticipated chemical reaction when it was brought above surface, Coleman said.

"The inaccessibility of the material did create some (testing) limitations," he said. "We tried to form the best decision we could with the data we had at the time."

Had the plan worked, it would have brought new cover soil to an area where it is sparse.

The sediment was already coming to Anaconda, Coleman said, and their only gamble was to see if they could make use of it in their design.

The EPA is surprised and disappointed it has not worked, he said, and is dedicated to fixing the problem.

"It is our obligation to get this right," he said.

- Reporter George Plaven may be reached via e-mail at george.plaven@lee.net.

From the Missoulian

Despite expectations for growth, only a few weeds have sprouted in the Milltown Dam sediments near Opportunity, where John Brown, Anaconda Superfund site project officer for the state Department of Environmental Quality, stands Thursday morning. Photo by LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian

Serge Myers is a longtime Opportunity resident, former smelter worker and president of the Opportunity Citizens Protection Association. “It’s nice to see the river go clean,” says Myers. “They (Missoulians) should all be grateful that we took the brunt of it.” Photo by LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian

Dust rolls across the Milltown sediment deposits Thursday afternoon. Officials monitor dust levels at the site and attribute most of the dust to nearby haul roads that separate the ponds. Guess where the dust is going.. You guessed it, Opportunity.   Photo by LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian

OPPORTUNITY – Milltown Reservoir’s exiled dirt won’t behave in its new home.

The 2.5 million cubic yards of fine-grained sediment dredged from the former reservoir east of Missoula has been spread 2 feet thick over more than 600 acres of wasteland between Anaconda and its satellite community of Opportunity. But it won’t grow grass.

“This would have been the first year we wanted to see vegetation everywhere,” said Charlie Coleman, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Anaconda site project manager. “But the vegetation never took off.”

That’s more and less of a problem than it sounds. Less, because the Milltown sediment doesn’t appear to be posing a human health hazard. It’s sticking where it belongs on top of historic smelter wastes, and doesn’t appear to contribute to the dust clouds that occasionally stampede across the Deer Lodge Valley.

While also contaminated with poisonous levels of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals, the Milltown sediments are a lesser evil in a 5,000-acre Superfund site that holds a century’s accumulation of mine and smelter wastes piled up to 50 feet deep.

Still, there is a problem, because the Milltown sediment was supposed to grow a layer of grass and cap those mining deposits. Coleman submitted the EPA’s fourth five-year review of the Anaconda Smelter National Priority List Site this month, and the Milltown project was supposed to be a completed item. It wasn’t.

*****

Interstate 90 motorists may remember seeing lines of rail cars being unloaded south of the freeway between the Warm Springs and Opportunity exits. Those cars were filled with sludge that built up behind Milltown Dam since it was built at the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers in 1908.

Atlantic Richfield Co, or Arco, bore responsibility for cleaning up that legacy of mine and smelter waste. The problems stretched from the mines and smelters in Anaconda and Butte down the Clark Fork River to Milltown Dam.

The area between the highway and Anaconda’s iconic smelter smokestack was known as Opportunity Ponds because smelter workers sluiced their waste downhill into a series of settling ponds, known as Cells A, B, C and D. The “ponds” have long since dried up, leaving behind a sprawling apron of tailings thick with cadmium, zinc, arsenic, lead and other poisons.

To fix this, Arco paid for and EPA managed years of effort to isolate the waste from surrounding ground and to cover it with a layer of safe soil and vegetation.

On the eastern edge of the wasteland, a dozen huge dump trucks and excavators were still at work last week, gathering more clean dirt to put on the tailings. The borrow pit they’ve created is nearly 1,000 acres in size, and will be converted into a prairie pothole-style wetland when they’re finished.

Elsewhere on the 5,000-acre Opportunity Ponds waste management area, clean fill over the old tailings has produced tall fields of grass. As Coleman led a tour through the site, a herd of 20 antelope grazed in one of the more established areas.

“Arco realized if this (Milltown sediment) grew vegetation, they could kill two birds with one stone,” Coleman said.

Ironically, once the Milltown excavators dug down to the level of the original riverbed, that old soil sprouted seeds that had been buried a century ago. There was hope that the excavated material, while not exactly rich potting soil, would at least support some simple field grasses.

But that didn’t happen. Most of the Milltown caps are as barren as the last exposed Anaconda tailings cell – a 20-acre plot that looks like curdled yellow cement. The only things that will grow in either spot are a few spiky thistles and tumbleweeds.

*****

Much of the sludge behind Milltown Dam got deposited there after a huge flood on the Clark Fork in 1908, which also left slickens of metal deposits along the river banks from Galen to Garrison. When Milltown Reservoir was found to be leaching arsenic into the local drinking water aquifer, EPA ordered a cleanup.

The early plans called for cleaning the gunk out of the reservoir and piling it nearby, possibly in the Bandmann Flats area between Bonner and East Missoula.

That would have been fine with Opportunity resident Serge Myers. He said many of the little community’s 750 residents feel they’ve been the janitors for everyone else’s pollution for years.

“I used to be able to see the trees at Warm Springs,” Myers said of the four-mile expanse between the two towns. Since he moved to Opportunity in 1957 as a smelter worker, the C and D cells filled in and blocked the view. When the area was declared a Superfund site in 1983, it seems the problems got bigger rather than smaller.

“I think they should all be grateful we took the brunt of it,” Myers said. “It’s nice to see the river go clean, but I thought we should at least get the property taxes from those new homes they built at Bandmann.”

Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Superfund technical adviser Jim Kuipers said dealing with one of the oldest – and largest – Superfund sites in the nation has been an exercise in patience.

“We’ve had great success downstream, with the dam removal and restoration work and new parks and trails,” Kuipers said. “Anaconda is still waiting for those things. We’re still 10 or 20 years away from being done up here.”

The Milltown grass problem shouldn’t last that long. No one’s sure why the grass won’t grow. It could be the soil chemistry is wrong, that decades of sitting under water left it too sterile to support plants. It could be a physical problem – the stuff is somewhere between a silt and a clay, which makes it tough for roots or water to penetrate.

Arco workers have set up a few test plots with added mulch, fertilizer and other additives to see if that helps. They’ve grown a few more grasses and weeds, but not enough to be successful.

“They have to make something work, or they have to go back to the drawing board,” said Chris Brick, science director for the Clark Fork Coalition, a nonprofit watchdog group monitoring the river restoration. “I don’t think we should experiment any more. They should cap it with clean soil and go on. We would advocate for getting the job done sooner than later.”

 

Mont. Superfund sediment cap won't grow vegetation

Sediment contaminated with heavy metals and spread over 600 acres to cover even more dangerous mining waste at a Superfund site near Anaconda in western Montana appears unable to support vegetation.

The 2.5-million cubic yards of fine-grained sediment dredged from a former reservoir east of Missoula was spread 2 feet thick over a portion of a 5,000-acre Superfund site that holds mine and smelter wastes up to 50 feet deep.

Charlie Coleman of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tells the Missoulian that this was the first year the agency expected to see the sediment covered with grass.

Officials say the sediment isn't posing a health hazard because it's covering the mine waste and doesn't appear to be blowing away as dust.

Chris Brick of the Clark Fork Coalition, a watchdog group, says the area should be capped with clean soil that will grow vegetation.

Pictures of Beaver Dam School inside and out

Along the Divide: Rebirth in Opportunity

Plans in motion for new park, Greenway trailhead

ANACONDA — Overgrown grass brushes against the weathered playground of a ghostly former school in Opportunity.

Lifeless and vacant since 1981, Beaver Dam School is a crumbling relic of smelter days, cubed in off Rickards Street, North Hauser Street and North Norris Avenue. Most recently, it is a bull’s-eye for vandals.

But rebirth is coming is in the vision of permanent recess. County plans to convert the 9.52-acre space into a park and Greenway trailhead are in motion after buying the land late last year from School District 10.

Commissioners approved going out for bid at their Oct. 5 meeting, and planning director Connie Ternes-Daniels said work should be done by next year.

“It’s been a long, arduous and challenging path to get there, but I feel we’re finally there,” Ternes-Daniels said. “This is going to be a huge asset for Opportunity.”

Residents have long wanted a park at the Beaver Dam site, she said. Possibility became reality in 2005 when U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., secured a federal $5 million appropriation to Missoula and Anaconda-Deer Lodge counties affected by the Milltown Dam removal project.

Anaconda received a little more than $2 million of that money, in consideration of the three million tons of contaminated soil hauled by train to the nearby Atlantic Richfield tailings ponds.

TOP PRIORITY

The commission in 2005 passed a resolution supporting Beaver Dam Park as the top priority of the appropriation, designated for transportation enhancements and including parks.

Estimates come to about $1.3 million for the park, Ternes-Daniels said, which will feature a picnic area, new playground equipment, walking trail around the perimeter and access to the Greenway trail.

“We really want this to be Opportunity’s park,” she said. “They’ve been very patient.”

The historic Beaver Dam School building will also remain standing and mothballed, except for the south side addition put on sometime in the 1950s, to be secured by an eight-foot fence.

Workers will remove asbestos from the school, Ternes-Daniels said, but complete renovations would add another $800,000 to the project cost.

“The public overwhelmingly stated they wanted a park more than they wanted to fix the building,” she said.

Engineering design evolved over a series of meetings with Opportunity residents last year at the Community Club, to discuss what they wanted to see at their park.

The county hired WWC Engineering, of Helena, and project manager Shawn Higley said the meetings regularly drew between 20 and 30 people.

“It was pretty compelling,” Higley said. “There really was no negativity toward the construction of a park.”

Beaver Dam Park will provide a green-grass focal point for community and social gatherings, Higley said. It will also make the area more attractive.

“The old school property was pretty run-down,” he said. “Aesthetically, this will clean up the area a great amount.”

BIDS ARE DUE

Construction bids are due by Nov. 8, and the contract calls for 150 working days to finish the job.

Work will likely begin next season, though Higley said they may push the contractor to start securing the Beaver Dam School a bit earlier in the winter, depending on the weather.

District 4 Commissioner Robert Pierce said he is adamant about Beaver Dam Park, especially considering the kids of Opportunity.

Kids wanting a trip to the park have had to travel into town, Pierce said. Now, they will have a place of their own.

“That area hasn’t had anything for kids since it started, really,” he said. “(The park) is going to be a great shot in the arm for the local community.”

Anaconda-Deer Lodge County planning director Connie Ternes-Daniels and Commissioner Robert Pierce review plans for Beaver Dam Park at the site recently. The park is expected to be finished by next year. The historic Beaver Dam School, vacant since 1981, is in the background.

Great News!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope.........

Nice Scenery

"We have some of the most breath taking scenery Montana has to offer. It is nice to sit in the back yard and see the mountains and occasionally here a wild bird sing. In the not to near future, our scenic view is going to change, along with the singing bird sounds. . There will be 2 huge power lines to look at and you will hear a constant humming from the lines.. enclosed is some pictures of what it will look like.. This power isn't even for the citizens of Montana, it is going to be shipped out of state. Write your senator and tell him how displeased you are with the decision to run these 2 huge power lines through our scenic valley."

May 3 Deja Vu

I thought these type of days where long behind us but this looks all too familiar. The people who live around the repository have been very lucky for the last 8 months. It has been wet and there have been no strong winds to speak of. These conditions have kept down the toxic dust clouds that have plagued the people who live around the area.. Tuesday, we experienced strong winds which are the norm for this time of year and guess what? We have yet another toxic dust cloud to help promote cancer, breathing illness’s and a number of other problems with our daily lives. When is this going to stop? We are getting damned sick of it. Blowing dirt is one thing but this is blowing right out of the ARCO/BP toxic repository. We have many citizens who are on oxygen in and around Toxitunity and they ALL tell me that when these dusts start to blow, they have to leave until they are over or they can’t breathe at all.. What gives EPA? I thought you were on our side? How many more years do we have to deal with this medically unsafe condition? Thanks for ???????

Putting it back

This piece of history, sat here at this location for years. It is the location of the Chamber of Commerce in Anaconda Mt. It was hauled away a few years ago and placed in another location, near the Copper King Express train that took people on a scenic tour of the Durant canyon area, between Butte and Anaconda. Crews this week are placing the old passenger car from The Butte Anaconda and Pacific railway, back. located at the Anaconda Chamber of Commerce once again..