State completes portion of cleanup

By The Montana Standard Staff - 12/03/2008

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has finished cleanup of a five-mile stretch of Silver Bow Creek extending from the Port of Montana downstream to Miles Crossing, west of Butte, according to a news release.

"We finished seeding it yesterday and we're done," project manager Joel Chavez said Tuesday.

The $17.5 million project began in 2004 and is a significant part of the overall $100 million remediation and restoration operation that has been under way since 1999 to clean 22 miles of Silver Bow Creek contaminated by mine waste, the release said.

"Many people in the community seem pleased with the work." Chavez said. "This site is in their front yard and generations of people have been looking at a dead zone that isn't dead anymore." The five-mile area includes Ramsay Flats where trout have now been found.

Approximately 65 percent of the 22 miles have been cleaned. The entire project, which extends from the Interstate 15-90 bridges, west of Butte, to Warm Springs Ponds, is expected to be completed by 2012.

In 1983, the Silver Bow Creek/Butte area was listed as a federal Superfund site. Money from a legal settlement with ARCO is paying for the cleanup.