Butte Citizens Technical Environmental Committee

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The Butte Citizens Technical Environmental Committee (CTEC) is a Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) [1] organization funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide public information and outreach regarding the Silver Bow Creek/Butte Superfund environmental cleanup site and associated sites, acting as an environmental community organization. The organization is based in Butte, Montana. The Silver Bow Creek/Butte Superfund Site is part of the largest Superfund complex in the western United States. Situated in the Clark Fork River Basin, the complex stretches approximately 120 miles from the Warm Spring Ponds area near Butte and Anaconda downstream to the Milltown Dam site east of Missoula. The site was proposed for the Superfund National Priority List (NPL) in 1982, with final designation in 1983. [2]

This article provides a list of active citizen-organized environmental community organizations that serve particular cities, towns, unincorporated area, and similar jurisdictions or regions in the United States and worldwide. Locations are listed in alphabetical order by state with associated organizations included in the line entry.

Butte, Montana Consolidated city-county in Montana, United States

Butte is the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers 718 square miles (1,860 km2), and, according to the 2010 census, has a population of approximately 36,400, making it Montana's fifth largest city. It is served by Bert Mooney Airport with airport code BTM.

Clark Fork River river in the United States of America

The Clark Fork, or the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, is a river in the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho, approximately 310 miles (500 km) long. The largest river by volume in Montana, it drains an extensive region of the Rocky Mountains in western Montana and northern Idaho in the watershed of the Columbia River. The river flows northwest through a long valley at the base of the Cabinet Mountains and empties into Lake Pend Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle. The Pend Oreille River in Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada which drains the lake to the Columbia in Washington, is sometimes included as part of the Clark Fork, giving it a total length of 479 miles (771 km), with a drainage area of 25,820 square miles (66,900 km2). In its upper 20 miles (32 km) in Montana near Butte, it is known as Silver Bow Creek. Interstate 90 follows much of the upper course of the river from Butte to northwest of Missoula. The highest point within the river's watershed is Mount Evans at 10,641 feet (3,243 m) in Deer Lodge County, Montana along the Continental Divide.

Contents

Organization History and Operations

CTEC dates back to the first EPA TAG awarded for the site in 1984. [3] As a TAG group, the organization is managed by a board of volunteer citizens, and has 501(c)(3) status. CTEC has one staff member, a part-time coordinator, and regularly employs independent contractors to provide technical assistance and review regarding site environmental data, Superfund documents, and ongoing cleanup.

The organization provides public information and outreach on the complex history and science of the Silver Bow Creek/Butte site through public events [4] and the CTEC website. CTEC also serves as a point of contact for members of the public with questions about the environmental cleanup of the Butte area, and maintains a repository of Superfund documents at the group's physical office.

CTEC and its members have also publicly expressed questions regarding the efficacy of Superfund cleanup [5] and criticisms of EPA. [6]

Recent Activities

In 2012, EPA and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO) attempted to discredit public health issues raised by the publication of a PhD dissertation by Dr. Stacie Barry, Coming to the Surface: The Environment, Health and Culture in Butte Montana. [7] [8] CTEC members responded by questioning EPA's reaction to the dissertation [9] and called for additional health studies. [10]

See also

Berkeley Pit mine

The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine located in Butte, Montana, United States. It is one mile long by half a mile wide with an approximate depth of 1,780 feet (540 m). It is filled to a depth of about 900 feet (270 m) with water that is heavily acidic, about the acidity of cola or lemon juice. As a result, the pit is laden with heavy metals and dangerous chemicals that leach from the rock, including copper, arsenic, cadmium, zinc, and sulfuric acid.

The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, part of the Amalgamated Copper Company from 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mining companies in the world for much of the 20th century.

Milltown Reservoir Superfund Site

The Milltown Reservoir Sediments Superfund Site is a major Superfund site in Missoula County, Montana, seven miles east of Missoula. It was added to the National Priorities List in 1983 when arsenic groundwater contamination was found in the Milltown area. The contamination resulted from a massive flood in 1908 which washed millions of tons of mine waste into the Clark Fork River, ultimately ending up behind the Milltown Dam.

Related Research Articles

ARCO oil company part of British Petroleum.

Atlantic Richfield Company is an American oil company with operations in the United States, Indonesia, the North Sea, the South China Sea, and Mexico. It has more than 1,300 gas stations in the western part of the United States, and recently five gas stations at northwestern Mexico. ARCO was formed by the merger of East Coast–based Atlantic Refining and California-based Richfield Oil Corporation in 1966. A merger in 1969 brought in Sinclair Oil Corporation. It became a subsidiary of UK-based BP plc in 2000 through its BP West Coast Products LLC (BPWCP) affiliate. On August 13, 2012, it was announced that Tesoro would purchase ARCO and its refinery for $2.5 billion. However, the deal came under fire due to increasing fuel prices. Many activists urged state and federal regulators to block the sale due to concerns that it would reduce competition and could lead to higher fuel prices at ARCO stations. On June 3, 2013, BP sold ARCO and the Carson Refinery to Tesoro for $2.5 billion. BP sold its Southern California terminals to Tesoro Logistics LP, including the Carson Storage Facility. BP will continue to own the ampm brand and sell it to Tesoro for Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada. BP exclusively licensed the ARCO rights from Tesoro for Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.

Marcus Daly American businessman

Marcus Daly was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States.

Superfund United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances

Superfund is a United States federal government program designed to fund the cleanup of sites contaminated with hazardous substances and pollutants. Sites managed under this program are referred to as "Superfund" sites. It was established as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). It authorizes federal natural resource agencies, primarily the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states and Native American tribes to recover natural resource damages caused by hazardous substances, though most states have and most often use their own versions of CERCLA. CERCLA created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The EPA may identify parties responsible for hazardous substances releases to the environment (polluters) and either compel them to clean up the sites, or it may undertake the cleanup on its own using the Superfund and costs recovered from polluters by referring to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Asarco

ASARCO LLC is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company is a subsidiary of Grupo México.

Anaconda, Montana City in Montana, United States

Anaconda, county seat of Deer Lodge County, which has a consolidated city-county government, is located in southwestern Montana of the United States. Located at the foot of the Anaconda Range, the Continental Divide passes within 8 mi (13 km) south of the community. As of the 2010 census the population of the consolidated city-county was 9,298, with a per capita personal income of $20,462 and a median household income of $34,716. It had earlier peaks of population in 1930 and 1980, based on the mining industry. It is still the ninth most populous city in Montana. Central Anaconda is 5,335 ft (1,626 m) above sea level, and is surrounded by the communities of Opportunity and West Valley.

After World War II, Montrose Chemical Corporation of California, 20201 S. Normandie Ave., Unincorporated LA County, California began producing Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT), the new "wonder pesticide". Its waste disposal system funneled the plant’s processed waste into the county sewer system and ultimately into the ocean. Montrose continued producing DDT even in the face of increasing scientific concerns about DDT in the 1960s. Production did not stop until 1982. The site discharged an estimated 1,700 tons of DDT between the late 1950s and early 1970s alone, which contaminated ocean sediments on the floor of the Palos Verdes Shelf (PVS) near Los Angeles, California.

Kalamazoo Superfund Site human settlement in United States of America

In 1990, the Allied Paper, Inc./Portage Creek/Kalamazoo River in southwestern Michigan was declared by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be a Superfund site – in other words, an abandoned industrial site containing significant amounts of toxic waste. The EPA and companies responsible for the waste in this area, which includes a three-mile section of Portage Creek as well as part of the Kalamazoo River, into which it flows, are currently involved in an effort to reduce the amount of toxic waste at the site, which is contaminated by PCBs from paper mills and other factories.

Anaconda Copper Mine (Nevada)

The Anaconda Copper Mine is an open pit copper mine in Lyon County, Nevada that was owned and operated by the Anaconda Mining Company. It is located adjacent to the town of Yerington. A company town, Weed Heights, was built to support the mining operation which ran from 1952 until 1978.

Uranium mining and the Navajo people

In 1944, uranium mining under the U.S military's Manhattan Project began on Navajo Nation lands and on Lakota Nation lands. On August 1, 1946, the responsibility for atomic science and technology was transfered from the military to the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Afterward, widespread uranium mining began on Navajo and Lakota lands in a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Leviathan Mine

Leviathan Mine is a United States superfund site at an abandoned open-pit sulfur mine located in Alpine County, California. The mine is located on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada at about 7,000-foot (2,100 m) elevation, 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Markleeville and 24 miles (39 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe. The mine site comprises approximately 250 acres (100 ha) of land surrounded by the Toiyabe National Forest, which is only accessible a few months a year. The approximately 22 million tons of sulfur ore-containing crushed rock at the mine are responsible for contaminating the Leviathan and Aspen Creek, which join with Mountaineer Creek to form Bryant Creek which ultimately empties into the East Fork of the Carson River. These water bodies are listed as 303(d) impaired. The site location is seismically active.

Rimini, ['rɪm ə naj] Montana is a ghost town which is one of the oldest mining districts in the state. It was established when silver lodes were discovered in 1864. Other names for the town were Lewis and Clark, Tenmile, Vaughn, Colorado, and Bear Gulch. It was the site of Camp Rimini, which trained dogs for use in World War II.

Eagle Mine (Colorado)

The Eagle Mine is an abandoned mine near the abandoned town of Gilman and about one mile south east of Minturn in the U.S. state of Colorado.

Silver Bow Creek river in the United States of America

Silver Bow Creek is a 26-mile-long (42 km) headwater stream of the Clark Fork (river) originating within the city limits of Butte, Montana, from the confluence of Little Basin and Blacktail Creeks. A former northern tributary, Yankee Doodle Creek, no longer flows directly into Silver Bow Creek as it is now captured by the Berkeley Pit. Silver Bow Creek flows northwest and north through a high mountain valley, passing east of Anaconda, Montana, where it becomes the Clark Fork (river) at the confluence with Warm Springs Creek.

History of Butte, Montana

Butte is a city in southwestern Montana established as a mining camp in the 1860s in the northern Rocky Mountains straddling the Continental Divide. Butte became a hotbed for silver and gold mining in its early stages, and grew exponentially upon the advent of electricity in the late-nineteenth century due to the land's large natural stores of copper. In 1888 alone, mining operations in Butte had generated an output of $23 million. The arrival of several magnates in the area around this time, later known as the "Copper Kings," marked the beginning of Butte's establishment as a boomtown.

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