Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond: Another Mine Waste Site near Butte

Below Butte's Moulton Reservoir and above the Berkeley Pit/Continental Pit area lies the Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond. It is formed by a tailings dam more than six hundred feet high. I am not certain when this area was first used for tailings disposal, but the Anaconda Copper Mining Company concentrator built in 1964 was a significant contributor. Today, Dennis Washington's Montana Resources. (MR) operation discharges its slurry waste onto the Yankee Doodle pond.

Here's a map of the roughly one thousand acre (nearly two square miles) tailings pond:

And here's a Continental Divide view of the Berkeley Pit (left) and tailings pond (right); (photo by Todd Trigsted):

You can visit the Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond by driving north on the Moulton Road from Walkerville. Watch for a user-created ATV troad after you pass Butte's municipal water treatment plant, about a mile north of town.

When MRI shutdown in July 2000 due to high electricity prices brought on by deregulation (interestingly, MR/Washington had lobbied for deregulation, believing it would lower prices), the tailings pond went dry. When wind conditions were right, Butte suffered from duststorms like this (photo by Derek Pruitt, Montana Standard newspaper):

Citizen complaints and a $121,200 fine forced MR to treat the dry pond surface (beginning with pumping water over them and ending with capping) to prevent blowing dust. To help poor Dennis Washington resume mining operations, Butte gave MR a $2 million loan and reduced taxes. By December 2003, MR was once again pumping its 25 cfs slurry onto the Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond (photo by Stephen Jennings, Montana State University):

The upper end of the tailings pond, where water rushes down from Yankee Doodle Creek, is an unearthly blue color:

Like many people, I had assumed this color was from copper sulfate and other heavy metals salts. My colleage, Chris Gammons, in Geological Engineering has done some testing, however, and he tells me the color is primarily from suspended clay sediments. You can see the color nicely in this shoreline view:

The mine waste slurry discharged by MR is very high in lime (which MR uses to precipitate and recover metals). The lime, and resulting high pH, causes the water in the Yankee Doodle pond to be low in metals (Chris did point out that it might be high in metalloids such as arsenic or selenium). The non-toxic nature of the water in Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond explains why it is used so heavily by waterfowl, and why one doesn't find dead ducks floating on the surface:

Still, there is a million yards or more of mine waste stored behind the Yankee Doodle tailings dam. Though it will probably end up being capped and vegetated if and when mining ceases, that is a decision that will have to be made in the future--perhaps as yet another Superfund site is added to the Upper Clark Fork River complex.

Superfund Connectedness: If Butte doesn't flush, Missoula doesn't drink...

When it comes to America's Largest Superfund Site here in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin of Montana, we are all together in a very big lifeboat. By "we," I mean residents of Butte, Anaconda, Opportunity, Deer Lodge, Bonner/Milltown, Missoula, and surrounding areas. It's like the traditional union slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all." This is also true in an environmental sense, of course. As some like to say in Butte, "If Butte doesn't flush the toilet, then Missoula doesn't get a drink of water."

Lately, I've been staying out of the springtime blizzards and reading through hundreds of pages of monitoring reports on Silver Bow Creek—that little stream that flows from Butte at the headwaters of the Clark Fork River. Silver Bow Creek -- technically known as the Stream Side Tailings Operable Unit -- was one of the first sites to be addressed by Superfund in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. Furthermore, Silver Bow Creek is an excellent example of Superfund remedy integrated with restoration, with the state of Montana (rather than the EPA) taking the lead.

Thanks to Montana’s Natural Resource Damage Program, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is spending several million dollars per mile to cleanup and restore 24 miles of Silver Bow Creek. The flood plain is dredged to remove stream sediments high in arsenic and toxic heavy metals, the stream is reconstructed to function as a stream should, clean soil is spread along the corridor, and the area is revegetated with native plants and shrubs.

To the eye, the area looks pretty darned good, especially when you compare the "before:"

With the "after:"

It's disturbing, though, to learn that the remedied and restored creek is being recontaminated.

Initially, when I heard about the recontamination of Silver Bow Creek, I thought it might be an ephemeral problem stemming from recent work along Butte’s old Metro Storm Drain. The DEQ site supervisor assured me it's not a big problem.

Data show, however, that this recontamination has been occurring since monitoring began in 2002. And it sure looks like a big problem, with contaminant levels far higher than threshold levels that indicate impairment of aquatic life. For example, the threshold for copper in sediments is about thirty parts per million. Contamination levels routinely exceed this threshold by a factor of ten, and occasionally by a factor of one hundred. Geez, if Denny Washington hears about this, he’ll start mining Silver Bow Creek!

After five years of reports confirming recontamination, you’d think DEQ and EPA would do something. Data indicate that recontamination is steadily occurring. Yet, each year, the annual review concludes with the recommendations: collect more data; try to identify the source; wait and see.

What, exactly, are we waiting for? We know that under remedy many sources of contamination on the Butte hill will remain. Furthermore, completing that remedy is some years in the future. Finally, a solution to this recontamination problem is already on the table: EPA included treatment ponds as an option in the Butte hill remedy. Let’s build that treatment facility now, and stop the madness.

In a very real, physical sense, the headwater stream of Silver Bow Creek is connected with the main stem of the Clark Fork River. Water flows down hill.

Every clean up has its price: sometimes in dollars and sometimes in human terms. With the clean up of Silver Bow Creek, Milltown, and other Superfund sites in the Upper Clark, let’s not forget where all that toxic mine waste goes. No, it doesn’t magically disappear.

Here we have a case of social (and environmental) effects moving upstream.

The toxic mine waste from Milltown is hauled up river to the vast Arco-British Petroleum waste repository near the town of Opportunity. Charlie Coleman of the EPA conducted a group tour of CRTAC and Opportunity activists on the repository last week. It was formerly known as the Opportunity Ponds, and for many years the Anaconda Copper Mining Company dumped waste there from its Anaconda smelter.

Tour group at the Arco-British Petroleum waste repository near the town of Opportunity:

It’s a big site: four thousand acres; more than six square miles. To date, the Arco-BP waste repository has been a big problem for nearby residents. Much of the waste was so phytotoxic that it would not support ground cover. Arsenic and heavy metals were carried off by wind and water erosion. Huge dust storms still occasionally engulf the town of Opportunity.

The day we visited, Arco-BP’s waste repository was a beehive of activity. Dennis Washington’s Montana Rail Link hauls waste by the trainload from Milltown, and Washington’s EnviroCon company spreads this waste as topsoil and undertakes revegetation. The 2.2 million cubic yards from Milltown – that’s about a million pickup loads – will cover a third of the waste repository.

EPA believes that the arsenic and metals levels of the Milltown waste, while high enough to classify as toxic waste, are low enough to support vegetation at a highly toxic waste repository currenlty devoid of vegetation.

Toxic mine waste being offloaded from the train to haul trucks:

Haul truck spreading the toxic mine waste as topsoil:

Area recently seeded:

Much of the waste repository has already been revegetated using contaminated soils from Silver Bow Creek. For the most part, says Charlie Coleman, the vegetative standard of 30% cover appears to have been met [see note, below]:

Some areas are pretty sparse, and if necessary will receive additional topsoil and reseeding:

Hopefully, this vegetative cover will end the dust storms, erosion, and further contamination of the groundwater aquifer.

Opportunity is a beautiful little town, and residents worry about being so close to a corporate waste dump. Some are more than a little skeptical about EPA assurances that this toxic waste in their backyard will be safely contained. They also do not trust EPA assurances that the arsenic action level of 250 parts per million is safe. Ninety Opportunity residents recently filed a lawsuit against Arco-British Petroleum, claiming that the corporation has “recklessly jeopardized their property, health, and welfare.”

The lesson here is that in Superfund, as in all things, we are connected. What happens along Silver Bow Creek will affect the Clark Fork River, and what happens at Milltown will affect the town of Opportunity. Let us all praise the Milltown Dam removal and cleanup, but let us also support Opportunity in its quest for environmental justice.

For more news about the recontamination of Silver Bow Creek, the Arco-British Petroleum waste repository, and other Superfund issues, please check out CFRTAC’s website at hyperlink www.cfrtac.org.

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Note: I readily confess that I do not know my butt from a hairy hole in the ground (sorry for the unfortunate analogy, but we are talking about a toxic mine waste site here!) when it comes to revegetation standards. Charlie Coleman, EPA, explained that they are using a Montana State University-Bozeman yardstick called "LRES Standard." The 30% goal must be met within ten years.

[An earlier version of this was broadcast as a commentary on Montana Public Radio.]

Dennis Washington: The New Copper King

Wow, Dennis Washington gave $10,000 to Butte in support of the folk festival!

The "wow" is because this is such a pitifully small amount, given both Washington's huge wealth and the Butte/National Folk Festival's need to raise 3 million dollars.

You see, just one of Washington's companies, Washington Group International, posted more than 80 million dollars in profit last year. Another of his holdings, The Washington Companies, includes Montana Resources, Envirocon, and Montana Rail Link--all very profitable businesses in their own right. Washington makes money coming (by gathering and hauling mine waste from Milltown to Opportunity) and going (from the Continental Pit) in our area.

Like his Copper King predecessors, Dennis Washington operates a giant conveyor belt that permanently removes wealth from Butte. Marcus Daly had his mansion in Hamilton, where he stabled his race horses. William Clark preferred New York City, where he amassed a fantastic art collection. Their combined assets became the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. The ACM left Butte a legacy costing hundreds of millions of dollars in Superfund remedy. The ACM's environmental legacy for the entire upper Clark Fork River Basing is approximately 1 billion dollars.

Dennis Washington secludes himself on a large private estate on Stuart Island in British Columbia. His principle charity is the University of Montana in Missoula. The first million dollars in charity went to finance Grizzly stadium in 1985. The most recent 10 million dollars went to the School of Education. Missoula gets tens of millions and Butte gets tens of thousands—a ratio of one thousand to one? Last I checked, the copper and molybdenum was coming from Butte, not Missoula. Butte copper was crucial in making Washington a billioinaire. With copper and moly at record high prices, the profit margin at Montana Resources (the mining operation here in Butte) are obscene even when compared with Exxon.

Everyone can applaud the many good charitable donations from the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation. Similarly, Butte is happy for the taxes paid by MR, and for the salaries and profit shares to MR employees.

However, one great question remains: the Anaconda Copper Mining Company left us the Berkeley Pit and a crumbling water supply infrastructure; What will be Dennis Washington’s legacy in Butte?

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A version of this piece appeared in The Montana Standard newspaper 07 May 2008.

When Ivy Newman responded to my letter in the Montana Standard, she raised the issue of current (and sorely needed) efforts to reform the 1872 Mining Law. Here are two links she suggested for further information:

US Senator from Montana, Jon Tester's recent op-ed on Reforming the 1872 Mining Law.

Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining

Butte's Walking Trail: urban and industrial history

Historians of technology debate the issue of cultural preservation: should industrial landscapes be preserved, even if such preservation compromises environmental cleanup? EcoRover comes down solidly on the side of protecting human and environmental health as a priority over cultural resource preservation, but compromise is possible.

That's how it is on Butte, Montana's, uptown walking trail. Sometimes called the "Butte Hill Line," it's a "rails to trails" path that follows part of the old Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific rail road grade. The BA&P never got past Anaconda, the Pacific being another 500 or so miles west. But it ran a lot of ore from the Butte mines to the Anaconda smelter, much of as an electric railway from 1914 to 1967. The old line was heavily polluted by arsenic and heavy metals, but it was capped and made into an urban historical trail complete with interpretive signs.

Most of the time, if I'm going for a walk, I head out the backdoor and into the hills. But my wife Jan and her friends have taken to walking the uptown trail, and so there we were, with RTD, on a sunny but cool Sunday afternoon. We began at the Anselmo mine yard (est. 1887) on Excelsior Street a half mile or so below our house. The Anselmo "gallows frame" (aka the head frame used to lift ore and miners) stands tall above the landscape:

We walked uphill and east, passing the Missoula Gulch area. Arco-British Petroleum and EPA made a half-hearted effort to cover up this vast tailings wasteland about a decade ago. They used a thin cover of soil, planted exotic grasses, and called it good. While an improvement over the vast barren area that contributed a lot of dust on windy days, it's a piss-poor permanent remedy. Here's RTD next to one of the many "failed" spots on the cover up, where acid and metals-laden tailings have burned their way back to the surface:

The trail passes through the funky neighborhoods of uptown Butte, and under Montana Street:

And Main Street:

One can imagine what it was like to live here a century ago in the "glory days" of mining with its filthy air, barren landscape, and dangerous working conditions. Today, we can safely romanticize the era of Industrial America. And in this post-industrial age Butte is groping along into the future much like other preterit towns such as Bradford, Pennsylvania, or Troy, New York. Nice views, even if you can't eat the scenery:

Neighborhood along the trail with the Original gallows frame in the left background:

View up the hill to the Mt Con gallows with the Butte motto, "Mile High, Mile Deep" (and an incoming plane in the right background):

And the end of the line with the Kelley gallows (est. 1947, the junior of the Butte underground mine family) looming in the background and the East Ridge (of the Continental Divide) behind all:

We turned around and headed back to the Anselmo and home. It was a nice walk, and I was heartened to see another six or eight walkers out and about on this chill day. Everyone, I think, had at least one dog with them. I don't think it's required that you own a dog to live in Butte, but I do think you need to own at least one in order to buy a house here!

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Butte, Montana: along the Continental Divide at the headwaters of America's largest Superfund site.

Promoting Rationality: The Montana Tech Regional Science Fair

Like any science & technology studies scholar, I can be very critical of positivism--defined as blind faith in the Truth and progress of science. Still, I support science as a form of rationality that gives us some understanding about the nature of nature. Without that sort of knowledge, it's difficult to set policy regarding issues such as global warming. Just ask the Bush administration, whose anti-science, conservative, radical-right wing dogmatism has been such a disaster for the environment.

As a way of promoting rationality, I act as "Head Judge" for the senior (9th through 12th grade) science fair hosted each year by the Technical Outreach program at Montana Tech.

This year, the senior fair hosted 68 students from 9 high schools. Senior fair students won 22 medals and 68 special awards. Grand award winners receive an all expense paid trip to compete at the International Science Fair in Atlanta, Georgia.

It takes a village of volunteers. Here is some of the staff at the check-in table:

And here are some students set up and ready to go with their projects:


In the first round, individual judges interview each student. Judges then discuss their rankings and award White, Red, and Blue Ribbons. Everyone receives a T-shirt:

The Blue Ribbon winners go on to second round, where teams of judges interview each student, discuss their rankings, and award Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals. Here's a team of second round judges at work:

In the third and final round, a team of judges deliberates which students receive the top awards. It's a difficult process, trying to decide the relative quality of very diverse projects in fields such as Computer Science, Biochemistry, Engineering, and Human Behavior. Arguments for and against various projects can be animated and even heated. Here are the judges hard at work in those final moments:

And the Grand Award winners are:
- Amanda Lockwood from Hellgate High School for her project, Molecular Analysis of Heme Uptake Promoter Region of Bartonella Quintana;
- Morielle Stroethoff from Hellgate High School for her project, The Application of the Ranque-Hilsch Vortex Tube in the Separation of Fluids; and
- The team from Hellgate High School of Matt Parker and Max Egenhoff for their project, A GIS Analyses of Land Use in Comparison to the Quantity of Baling Twine in Osprey Nests

Congratulations to the students, teachers, parents, and mentors that make science fair happen. In a nation where many citizens believe the world was created just a few thousand years ago and that global warming is a leftist conspiracy, we need more people who base their beliefs on reason instead of faith.

Clark Fork Superfund: If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail?

[This blog entry is a revised version of a commentary that originally aired on KUFM/Montana Public Radio on behalf of the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee.]

Springtime in the Rockies. Another St Paddy’s Day in Butte is behind us. Butte’s Silver Bow Creek is rising as snow pack melts under the warm afternoon sun. Normally, we like to see those high spring flows. They are part of a natural cycle for our streams, and beneficial effects range from creating spawning habitat for trout to stimulating cottonwood seed germination.

In the case of Silver Bow Creek, spring run-off is not so good. Recall that Montana’s Natural Resource Damage Program (through the Department of Environmental Quality or DEQ) is spending about three million dollars per mile to cleanup and restore 24 miles of Silver Bow Creek. Much of this money is for dredging and removing stream sediments high in toxic heavy metals. You know, from the days when the Anaconda Copper Mining Company used the environment as a free garbage dump.

Recently released data show that Silver Bow Creek is being recontaminated—probably by run-off from the Butte hill. It’s not that spring run-off is to blame, exactly. Rather, it is Arco-British Petroleum and the Environmental Protection Agency.

It’s a serious problem. Copper is a good proxy for all of the other heavy metals and arsenic that are part of this recontamination problem. According to EPA, the maximum “safe” ecotoxicity level for copper in stream sediments is 34 milligrams per kilogram. The copper levels of recently deposited sediments in Silver Bow Creek are running ten to thirty times the safe level.

Joel Chavez, the Superfund Project Manager for DEQ, explained to me that this is not necessarily as bad as it looks. The arsenic, copper, and other heavy metals are concentrated in the fines (very small diameter) portion of the creek sediments, and the fines make up a relatively small overall proportion of the total sediments. Therefore, the overall proportion of contamination is fairly low.

Still, copper is toxic to most aquatic life. Recontamination -- especially if it continues in a chronic manner -- could prevent trout from recolonizing the creek and impair the kinds of critters that trout eat. Re-establishing trout populations is a major goal for the restoration of Silver Bow Creek. Recontamination might mean failure for remedy and restoration.

This single instance of recontamination is one sign of a broader failure with two main parts: one is a fundamental problem with the upper Silver Bow Creek and Butte hill remedy; and the other is a fundamental problem with public communication and involvement.

Over the past decade or so, EPA assured us that recontamination would not occur. Problem is, instead of cleanup, EPA prefers long-term institutional controls—complex engineering solutions such as settling ponds and trenches to intercept and reroute toxic runoff. While this sort of cover-up is cheaper for Arco-British Petroleum, it doesn’t work.

What have the EPA, Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality, and Montana’s Natural Resource Damage Program to say about the recontamination of Silver Bow Creek? Nothing. That’s right: no public meeting, no nothing. Silver Bow Creek was cleaned up with public money. We expect government to use our money responsibly. That responsibility includes involving the public in planning and notifying us when things go wrong.

The EPA, of course, ignored public opinion regarding remedy for the Butte hill when it came to issues such as removing the Parrot Tailings.

Given the evidence that Silver Bow Creek is being recontaminated, Warm Springs Ponds are the safety net that protects the Clark Fork River. They are located at the lower end of Silver Bow Creek, just before it joins Warm Springs Creeks and other tributaries to form the Clark Fork River. The ponds are a popular recreational area for anglers, bird watchers, bikers, hunters, and waterfowl dog trainers.

CFRTAC has been working with the state to improve management at the ponds. There is serious neglect: toilets are a wreck, personnel have been cut, trash cans overflow, and facilities such as boat ramps and picnic tables are in disrepair. Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks has incorporated many of CFRTAC’s concerns into a proposal for funding from the Natural Resource Damage Program (NRDP).

As an outcome of its recent 168 million dollar settlement with Arco-British Petroleum, the Natural Resource Damage Program has released plans for the Butte hill and Clark Fork River.

The Butte plan proposes removing the Parrott and Metro Storm Drain tailings at a cost of about 26 million dollars. EPA should have required this under remedy, and it will help insure the long-term environmental health of the watershed.

Montana will also be the lead agency for the 104 million dollar Clark Fork River remedy, thus enabling it to integrate remedy and restoration.

Despite this good news, CFRTAC’s overarching concern remains: there is no comprehensive restoration plan for the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. The state needs to involve the public in developing a plan that identifies and prioritizes restoration needs as a guide for decisions about which projects get funded. Carol Fox, director of the NRDP, assures me that there is a process underway to develop such a plan.

For more news about the recent NRD settlement and related Superfund issues, please check out CFRTAC’s website at hyperlink www.cfrtac.org.

From Butte to Missoula, we deserve a clean, healthy, and accessible Clark Fork River. It’s your river. Wade in, and help make the future.

Montana's Cheshire Cat: The Anaconda Company

What has become of the era when college presidents were scholars that set a high bar for their faculty? How did we get to the point where college presidents are far more likely to -- at best -- be glad handing fundraisers or -- at worst -- meddlesome micro-managers?

As president-scholars, I'm thinking of Frank H. T. Rhodes, president of Cornell Univeristy from 1977 to 1995. While president, he authored the classic "Golden Guide" series book Geology (1972), edited another big seller Language of the Earth (1981), and technical monographs such as Conodent Paleozoology (1973). Hell, as a grad candidate at Cornell I thought "Dusty" (?) was a historian, given that he would occasionally wander the hallways, visit my Doktorvater L. Pearce Williams, and engage in an intelligent conversation about European history or the history of science. Here's a nice pic of Rhodes in China:

And I'm thinking about Michael P. Malone, president of Montana State University from 1991 until his untimely death in 1999. While president, he completed the standard work on Montana history, Montana: A History of Two Centuries (1991) and several new works such as Montana: A Contemporary Profile (1996) and the biography James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest (1997). Here's a Malone book near and dear to my heart:

For years, I have been puzzled about the origins of a historical metaphor comparing the Anaconda Copper Mining Company with the Cheshire Cat. The ACM's influence on Montana lingered long after the company disappeared. I thought this metaphor came from University of Montana-Missoula historian Joseph Kinsey Howard or his successor K. Ross Toole. And maybe Howard or Toole did originate the phrase. Here's the Cheshire Cat with Alice in an illustration from Carroll (1865):

Nonetheless, I recently found it used in a brief historical commentary, "The Close of the Copper Century" (1985) by Malone. Paradoxically enough, Malone argues in this essay that we should not regard Montana history as unique or a case of exceptionalism. Instead, Montana (and its black heart, Butte) was typical of the Amerian era of robber barons, western states as economic colonies of capitalism, and rapacious anti-environment mining. Likewise, Montana (and the Anaconda Company) fell victim to the rise of third-world nations such as Chile, thanks to cheap labor and no environmental protections, in exporting raw materials to the United States.

In this sense, I suppose, the Cheshire Cat is a paradigmatic cat, a cat-signifier that can represent the ACM as well as Standard Oil, United States Steel, or General Motors.

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Images

Frank H. T. Rhodes at a graduation ceremony in mainland China with the country's vice minister of education Wu Qidi, www.asu.edu/ .

Malone, Battle for Butte (1981), www.his.state.mt.us/ .

Cheshire Cat and Alice, from the original John Tenniel illustration in Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) , thewhiterabbit.net .

The Moulton Journal: Springtime in February?

Wow, it's been a hectic week. The return trip from Orono, Maine, class projects heating up & students needing help, faculty union-related business, participating in the Poetry Palooza at the Venus Rising Cafe (hosted by the Butte Silver Bow Arts Foundation, see http://www.bsbarts.org/)... It all makes me glad for cross country skiing, which provides a regular link to nature and an aerobic workout where the stress slides away like snow on a steep metal roof.

I packed my Fischer E99s (the SUV of cross country skis) to Orono, and had a few delightful mornings on the 25 km of trails that loop around the edges of the University of Maine campus. Here's one trailhead next to the athletic fields:

The trails are very flat compared with Montana skiing, and they are extremely well maintained. Lots of white-tailed deer and a few moose. Though a little wide for my tastes, what an asset to have in your college backyard! They get used a lot--cross country skiing is far more popular in Maine than in Montana. Most every town (Bangor, Old Town, etc) seems to have its own trail system, and there are connecting trails so that you can ski from point-to-point most anywhere in the state, it seems.

The weather was truly Maniacal: perfect snow and 25 deg F one morning, rain and slush the next morning, -5 deg F with fresh snow on ice the next... For an Allegheny Mountain boy like me, though, it was a joy to ski amid the mixed hemlock/white pine/hardwood forest. Few trees are more beautiful than the graceful hemlock with its gentle boughs:

Or the beech still clinging to its leaves in the middle of winter:

Back at The Moulton, weather was very spring-like last week. The snow on Big Flat (aka Moonlight Flat) set up firmly, making it possible to tour about anywhere you cared to go. So long as you were out in the open and not in the woods, the snow would hold you up. For skiers new to The Moulton, Big Flat can be reached from the south end of Neversweat or from where the meadow crosses Claim Jumper. The trails lie just to the east of Big Flat, and you're never more than a hundred yards or two away from the trails. Here's RTD, trying to catch up:

Our mid-elevation hills are often big open parks on the south and west slopes. The combination of wind and sun simply make these areas too dry for trees. I love the wide open space of Big Flat, and the panoramic views of the various mountain ranges that encircle Butte. Here's the view to the Butte Flats, airport, and Highland Mtns:

And the Pintler Range:

And Mt Powell, down the Clark Fork River valley near Deer Lodge:

Winter has returned, with six inches or so of snow overnight. It was icy and warm to begin with, but quickly settled into fluffy powder. Ski on!

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Skiing Area

The Moulton Journal: Skiing Right out of your Boots...

I never thought of myself as all that aggressive a skier, so when I bent the toe pin on a brand new pair of Salomon "Escape Pilot 7" boots I felt a mix of pride and disappointment. Disappointed that a brand new pair of fairly pricey boots was shot. Proud that I was setting a sub-11 minute pace on The Yankee Boy loop. Proud that I could ski so hard as to wreck a new pair of boots. But I try not to let delusions control my life, and have no doubt that Salomon is suffering some quality control/soft metallurgy issues. Here's a close up of the bent toe bar:


I've skied on a now beat up pair of Fischers for nigh on eight years, and everything BUT the toe bar is about worn out. I've been holding the soles to the boot with "Shoe Goo" this season, and was looking forward to new boots. So it goes. Here are the old boots:

Most of the time, I ski on the Fischer E99 "backcountry" skis with heavier boots anyway, but there are those perfectly groomed, fast snow days when its fun to combi-ski (wax for kick up the hills, but skating on the more or less flats) on the featherlight, skinny little Madshus classic skis. Although the cross country ski trails of The Moulton are Montana's finest, they aren't "overgroomed" like a lot of trails these days. And with the almost daily accumulations of snow this winter, it's hard for an awkward skier like me to get by on skinny, classic equipment--at least if I'm on the more challenging north area trails like The Yankee Boy and Big Nipper/Widow Maker.

Oh yeah, let me put in a plug here for Akers Ski, Inc., the "cross country specialist" business in Andover, Maine. Tim (Akers?) has offered me consistent, good advice for years (by phone), and I've bought several pairs of skies and boots from Akers. When I emailed the folks at Akers this morning about the Salomon failure, they were great! They'll take care of sending the boots back to the manufacturer, and I'm exchanging them for a comparable pair made by Atomic. If you're in the market for cross country skis, boots, or gears, check out Akers at www.akers-ski.com. Good people. Good prices. Good selection.

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Skiing Area

The Moulton Journal: Shifting Baselines, a Couple of Moose, and Skiing as Story

Shifting Baselines
It's a scary thought: all us skiiers are raving about what a great snow year this is. Yet, when you look at the last hundred years or so of data, it's really very average. But as humans (or Americans, anyway), we forget the lessons of history and only the recent past is our basis for comparison. Thus all of those so-called "drought" years from 1998 to 2007 are now normal, and the winter of 2007-08 looks exceptionally white and cold.

This is a good example of the classic phrase "shifting baseline," coined by biologist Daniel Pauly to explain how fisherman (and fisheries biologists) came to accept declining fish populations. In other words, it's all a matter of what you are used to. But no, it isn't: whether declining fish populations or global warming, there are real human impacts on the environment. If we do not appreciate their severity, we will end up like the Greeks or Romans or all those cultures that caused their own demise by ruining their environment [cf. Diamond (2005) Collapse].

But the snow is here, and I will get out there and enjoy it.

Moose
Since December, I've been seeing The Moulton moose cow and her calf separately. I thought that, as it seems to happen each year, the cow had driven the calf away or it had left on its own to stake out its own willowy territory. But this morning, there they were together again, feeding in the willow bottom near the Downy place (a mile or so below the parking lot), and bedded down as I returned:


Skiing as Story
Cross country skiing the trails of The Moulton is a performative act. It is something like Walter Ong and others thesis about Homer's Illiad and other oral traditions: they were never told the same way twice. Instead, the poem or song is stitched together from prefabricated parts, each with its own memorable thoughts, rich sensual metaphors, and other distinguishing features. And it's not a book that you read just once.

And so it is with a ski at The Moulton or with similar performances such as a hike through a familiar area. Each performance is a new story. In part, this is trivially true in a Heraclitean sense that "You can't step in the same river twice:" the snow, wind, temperature, light, wax, the pair of skis you're on, mouse tracks, and so forth are all different each time.

But in an equally interesting sense, each ski or hike is unique because of the way we stitch together familiar elements. Climbing across the ridge and skiing down the Buzzy Trail with its Single Jack and Double Jack is one day's introduction to The Moulton story, whereas another day might be introduced by way of a trek across the meadow, up the Orphan Girl hill, and down Wake Up Jim. Like Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, there is no one right order in which to read the chapters.

Sadly, I think, many residents of Modernity believe in and seek The One True Order. They seek the linearity of alpha-omega from beginning to end in an invariant way. They march into Iraq determined to transform diverse cultures that do not share "our" values into a democractic, "one nation under capitalism" neo-con version of Amerika.

This is exactly why we need the disorder, diversity, and complexity of nature and wilderness. It is a counterpoint to our daily experience of culture and technology, it challenges us to surrender our rational linearity, and it helps us discover the beauty of our relationship to the earth.

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Ski Trails

A New Year on the Upper Clark Fork

A version of this commentary aired on KUFM, Montana Public Radio (http://www.mtpr.net/commentaries.html), as part of a regular series I do for the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee (www.cfrtac.org).

It's nice to see a real winter settle across the Butte landscape. Snow-pack is looking good, which portends well for fish and river flows this summer. And the thirty below zero temperatures might even slow down the pine beetles that have been chewing their way through the forests of lodgepole pines. This cold weather slows me down. On the cross country ski trails, I’ve been waxing with Swix Polar and even then it’s a little like skiing on beach sand.

Here’s news to warm our hearts: Montana’s Natural Resource Damage Program recently announced that 20 million dollars would be available in this year’s grant cycle for restoration and replacement projects in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. This is a huge increase—more than doubling the amount available in prior years.

The increase seems to stem from the expectation that Montana and Arco-British Petroleum will arrive at a settlement for the state’s outstanding natural resource damage claims on the Clark Fork River, Anaconda Uplands, and Butte Area One. Montana received a total of 230 million dollars in 1999 as a partial settlement for its claims. Of that amount, about 130 million dollars was solely for injuries to our natural resources.

The total value assigned to the outstanding claims is about 175 million dollars. Up until now, no restoration funds were available for these areas. For example, projects on the Clark Fork River were off limits.

With 20 million dollars available and the prospect of the entire basin open to projects, there are some attractive possibilities. Property acquisitions for big horn sheep winter range, river access sites, conservation easements along the river, and combining remedy & restoration in heavily polluted areas: these are just a few of the ways that this funding could be used.

In order to consider increased funding and opportunities, CFRTAC recently hosted a meeting of folks representing landowners, conservation groups, sportsmen’s groups, and local communities. One overarching concern emerged from the discussion: there is no comprehensive restoration plan for the Upper Clark Fork River Basin.

A watershed is a closely integrated system where the parts interact in intimate and sometimes unexpected ways. Without a holistic or “big picture” understanding, it is easy to fall into bad management practices. As a simple example, consider the property owners that rip-rap the river bank. This further destabilizes the river channel, creates problems for downstream owners, and harms habitat health.

We saw some problems early on when money became available for restoration projects in the Silver Bow Creek watershed around Butte. The lack of a comprehensive plan encouraged piecemeal projects that, in some cases, did not contribute to overall watershed health. Because of concerns raised by the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee and other conservation groups, the Natural Resource Damage Program developed a comprehensive watershed restoration plan. This plan identified and prioritized restoration needs, and now guides decisions about which projects get funded.

The Silver Bow Creek Watershed Restoration Plan was developed with broad public involvement. Participants included local citizen-activists, community leaders, conservation groups, and agency scientists. Diverse grassroots and scientist participation helped educate Natural Resource Damage Program staff about the many environmental subtleties, restoration needs, and holistic connections within the watershed. Information needed for a comprehensive plan was already out there—but it was not available in ways that could shape good decisions about how and where to spend the public’s money.

For example, we learned that several tributaries of Silver Bow Creek hold populations of native Westslope cutthroat trout. Restoring these streams, protecting native fish from hybridization by introduced species, and enhancing connectivity between the tributaries and Silver Bow Creek emerged as major priorities. Throughout the comprehensive plan, the emphasis is on restoration as a self-sustaining process that will not require constant maintenance or additional funding, and in ways that contribute to future environmental health and community well-being.

It is critical that the Natural Resource Damage Program invest in a similar comprehensive plan for the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. While 200 million dollars sounds like a lot of money, natural resource restoration and replacement projects can be very expensive. It would be easy to blow the whole wad and have little to show for it. Residents of the Clark Fork River watershed – including future generations – deserve better.

For more news about the Clark Fork River and related Superfund issues, please check out CFRTAC’s website at hyperlink www.cfrtac.org.

The Moulton Journal: Swix Polar Weather Continues

It was about -10 deg F starting out this morning in the pre-dawn hours. The almost full moon was still high enough to shed some light on the frigid landscape:

A perfect morning for Swix Polar, this wax made for good climbing and gliding around Buzzy, The Yankee Boy, the Nippers, and back down the road to the truck. Not as fast as Purple Swix at 30 deg F, but fast enough that it felt like skiing instead of sliding along on sandpaper (as it seemed the other night at -20 or so). Along the top of Buzzy, the rising sun filtered through the trees and brought a little welcomed warmth:

Skiing hard makes me thirsty, and I don't like toting the weight & bulk of an insulated bottle. It only works for a few hours, but I keep my Gatorade from freezing by making it with hot water and then wrapping it in a paper sack before tucking it into the pocket of my fanny pack:

There was an unusual abundance of mouse tracks running this way and that through the woods and over the fields. And tracks of a fox or two, hunting the mice. Are mice more active on nights with a bright moon? Nope--not according to the literature. Turns out they are far more active with the new moon (c. 3,000 feet moved per day vs. just a few hundred). Makes sense, I guess: the full moon provides owls, fox, and other predators some advantage. They must of just been hungry last night, what with the prior stormy weather and exceptional cold.

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Ski Trails

The Moulton Journal: Full Moon Skiing at -20 deg F

Woke up to a Martin Luther King day with the thermometer on the porch showing about -20 deg F. Radio said the airport (down on the flats, where the cold air settles) was -34 deg F. That's chilly, and the Toy started only grudgingly for it's trip to Dick's Auto for a little maintenance. As always, I had planned to ski the full moon. But my plans were easily frozen by a weather report calling for even colder temperatures that night.

I decided on an afternoon ski and waited until the air warmed to -15 deg F in the early afternoon to head up to The Moulton. As always when it's cold, the old LandRover cranked slow and gave every indication of not starting, but then the spark caught and it fired to life. I waxed with Swix Polar, and even that made for slow skiing. Surprise, though, near sunset when RTD and I finished The Yankee Boy loop and made ready to ski down to the parking lot, the air had warmed to -5 deg F.

That happens in our valley sometimes, as warm air slowly makes its way up to the higher elevations from down valley places such as Deer Lodge (i.e. the "lodge of the white tailed deer," as the indigineous people called it).

Still, I was surprised when Andrea Stierle called just as Jan & I were sitting down to supper to ask me if I was up to ski that night. "Well, sure." And so RTD and I joined Don and Andrea, as did fellow Frigidaironaut Mike Stickney.

The air was so clear that neither the lights of Butte nor the stars seemed to twinkle. The moon lit the landscape of Big Flat (aka Moonlight Flat) with that brilliant yet eerie light that collapses great distances. Butte is ringed with mountain chains of the Great Divide: the Tobacco Roots, Highlands, Pioneers, Pintler, and Flint Creek ranges stood brightly on the horizon, appearing to be a short hike away.

After our ski we stopped into the Stierles' cabin, enjoyed the warmth of the wood stove and a hot cup of tea, and talked in that easy way of tired, old friends. Back in the parking lot, as Andrea observed, "One of the loveliest sounds of winter – your truck starting when you are several miles from town and it’s -18!"

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Ski Trails

Butte Microbrew: Quarry Brewing Company

'Bout time. For years, Montana's most notorius drinking town, Butte, has been thirsting for a brew pub. Rumours and threats went 'round, but all came to nought. Many of us had abandoned hope.

Then, it happened: Chuck and Lyza Schnabel (from our sister city of Anaconda, no less!) moved to Butte and founded the Quarry Brewing Company. It's in a nondescript old garage at 45 W Galena St, smack in the middle of the uptown. Not much of a sign outside, so the easiest way to find it: right across from the Gold Rush Casino.

There's a nice selection of beers and in the near future when the hops become more available, Chuck says they'll add an IPA:

The bar and tables (with church pews for seating) are comfortable, and if you don't already know whomever you're standing or sitting next to, you will in five minutes. Here's Lyza tending the bar:

Regular patrons can join the Mug Club (there's a waiting list):

While quaffing your brew, mull on the magic of yeast, hops, and grain in the adjacent room:

Help yourself to some popcorn, chat with your friends, and order another pint. And, if you can't get to the Quarry before the 6 p.m. closing time, lots of Butte bars are carrying Quarry brews. If not, be sure to ask! Currently, the Open Pit Porter is the popular choice at other bars. Quarry regulars seem to prefer Shale Pale Ale. They are both very good. Any questions? Just ask Chuck:

My favorite time for a beer? Well, if you bring home a growler, anytime is good. But after a couple hours of skiing there's nothing like a pint: