The project now underway at the Milltown Reservoir is one of the nation's most challenging and ambitious environmental cleanups. It is an effort that integrates what's known as the Three Rs, remediation, restoration and redevelopment.

After 20 years of study, debate and planning, on-the-ground work began at the Milltown Reservoir Superfund site in the summer of 2006. In just three years, the dam and most of the sediments proposed for removal are now gone. Here's how that happened:

As of June 2009, more than 1.9 million cubic yards had been shipped from the Milltown site to the BP ARCO waste repository at the Anaconda Superfund site. More than two million cubic yards will shipped in total. At the repository, roughly 80,000 cubic yards of reservoir sediments are scooped daily from one train with 45 rail cars. The daily process of unloading, spreading, and seeding sediments will continue through late 2009. All in all, the material from Milltown will cover less than a quarter of the waste repository, or about 800 out of 4,000 total acres.