Milltown Sediments Fail to Grow Plants at the BP-ARCO Repository

December 13, 2010
Contaminated sediments from the Milltown Reservoir Superfund site have yet to grow the much hoped for vegetation at the BP-ARCO Waste Repository at the Anaconda Smelter Superfund site --  and may end up capped themselves.

CFRTAC will hold a public meeting at the Anaconda Courthouse at 7 p.m. on Tuesday December 14 to discuss the Milltown sediments issue. For details call 846-1628.

Milltown sediments were once believed to be a solution to a problem at the 4000-acre repository, which for decades has been the toxic home for hundreds of millions of tons of heavy metal contaminated waste from the Anaconda Smelter. The site needed borrow material for a cap to grow grasses over the older and much more toxic smelter wastes at the repository. Vegetative cover, according to ARCO planners, would capture most the precipitation, thus preventing infiltration and contamination of groundwater. And a grassy cap would also help reduce the chronic dust storms at the site.

The Milltown sediments, some three million tons, were excavated from the reservoir between 2007 and 2009 and spread over 800 acres of smelter waste at the BP-ARCO site. (See the Other End of the Dam Project). Although Milltown's sediments were contaminated with arsenic, copper and zinc, they were also rich in organic matter and thought to be capable of growing plants. But after three growing seasons, vegetation is sparse to nonexistent, and EPA and ARCO are trying to figure out why.

"Research has been conducted showing successful growth on the sediments using various treatments like lime, organic matter and mulch," says Charlie Coleman, EPA Project Manager for the site. "Lab conditions don't always work in the field though."

Coleman says researchers have put a good deal of work into studying various conditions including salinity, nitrogen content, and texture. ARCO has used the knowledge gained from these studies to build demonstration sites at the repository to see what soil amendments will work. ARCO continues to investigate the mystery and is designing a new "treatability study," which is due to EPA in March of 2011.

The time for study seems to be drawing to a close as growth fails to achieve the levels required under the Record of Decision (ROD) for the Smelter site. Coleman says EPA will require a soil cap for the area regardless of the success of the treatability study. If the ARCO's study is deemed successful, EPA will require a 6-inch cap placed over the sediments. If the study is not successful, an 18-inch cap will be required. Capping the sediments with soil will be an expensive action either way. Coleman estimates the 18-inch soil cap would cost about $20 million and a 6-inch soil cap would run about $10 million. "But either way it gets a cover," he says.

ARCO is searching for an area that can provide the soil needed for such a cover.

Clark Fork River Landowners attend Superfund Cleanup Meeting

Milltown State Park and Trail Projects Continue Progress

December 12, 2010

The proposed state park at the Milltown Superfund site made considerable headway in 2010 with the receipt of a $2.6 million grant from the Natural Resource Damage Program and a $700,000 federal appropriation received through the work of Montana Senator Max Baucus.

The NRDP grant, submitted by the Dept. of Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP), Missoula County and the Milltown Superfund Redevelopment Working Group, was the product of a park planning effort led by the Working Group that began in 2003. NRDP funds will be used to develop the initial phase of the park at the Milltown Gateway and Confluence areas, as well as acquire 180 acres in the surrounding area. In December, FWP hired a park management specialist (former CFRTAC coordinator Michael Kustudia) to help turn the Working Group's 2008 conceptual park plan into a reality.

In its initial phase, likely to begin late in 2011, roughly two miles of hiking and biking trails will be built along the Blackfoot River from the Milltown pedestrian bridge to the confluence with the Clark Fork. From there the trail will go on, contingent on additional funding, to a second pedestrian bridge across the Clark Fork that would connect to the Kim Williams trail and Missoula. In addition to trails, two pavilions will be built, a small one at the Milltown Gateway and a larger one at the confluence that will offer a vista of the restored rivers and opportunities for interpretation about the restoration effort.

On related fronts, the transfer of roughly 450 acres of land from Northwestern Energy to the state of Montana is nearing its final stage. Before the handoff can be made, it must pass briefly through the jurisdiction of the federal government - the EPA in this case. The US Dept. of Justice is reviewing the transfer, and should finish soon, according to EPA project manager Diana Hammer. The land will be likely transferred to the state Dept. of Environmental Quality for the remaining duration of the remediation and restoration work, but ultimately to FWP for management as a state park.

On the bluff above the former dam site, the construction of a visitor overlook is still on hold while Burlington Northern reviews its portion of another land transfer. First proposed by the EPA in 2005, the project would develop an overlook with fencing, interpretive signage, a trail and parking area at the Milltown bluff. The bluff offers a panoramic view of the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers and surrounding communities. The bluff area will also be included in the new Milltown state park. Once BN attorneys sign off on the project, construction could start in spring of 2011.

Connecting the new state park by trail to Missoula has been central to the Milltown Superfund Redevelopment Working Group vision. The Missoula Park Dept. is seeking permits from the state and access from Montana Rail Link to connect the Kim Williams Trail to trails in the Canyon River development along Deer Creek Road. That project could begin in spring of 2012.

From the Deer Creek Road, Five Valleys Land Trust worked with a local family to acquire land for a trail to connect to the river bank opposite the confluence area. A pedestrian bridge across the Clark Fork, whose design but not construction was funded by the NRDP grant, would connect to hiking and biking trails leading into Milltown and on through to Piltzville and Turah.

Deer Lodge Superfund Cleanup Public Meeting

Upper Clark Fork River Cleanup Work Begins

December 12, 2010

With little fanfare but long anticipation, cleanup work at the Clark Fork River Superfund site began in October with the excavation of contaminated soil from residential areas in Deer Lodge and along the Eastside Road.

The event marks the start of the Superfund cleanup more than 20 years in the making, one that will see the removal of historic mining waste from the river banks and floodplain over the next decade or so at a cost of $123 million.

"I am excited that actual cleanup work has begun," says Brian Bartkowiak, operations manager for Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the agency that leads the project. Bartkowiak says that DEQ contractors cleaned up five of six properties before hard freeze occurred, and that another 12 properties are on deck for early 2011.

The 18 residential properties slated for cleanup lie either along the banks of the Clark Fork River in Deer Lodge city limits or on the Eastside Road, where many decades ago a historic irrigation ditch flooded fields with contaminants such as arsenic, copper, cadmium, zinc and lead.

Historically, the Eastside Road properties were owned by the Montana State Prison Ranch. In those days, ranchers in the area typically shut their head-gates to stop river water when the Clark Fork was running red with mining contamination. But the inmates who operated the prison's ranch were reportedly less vigilant in keeping contaminated water from reaching these fields. The use of the ditch was stopped entirely when it was realized how much harm the water was causing to crops, but by then the damage was done.

Over the years, the land was sold and homes were built along the Eastside Road. Today shallow layers of mining contamination remain, usually at a depth of 6 inches although as deep as 18 inches in some places. For the cleanup, contaminated soil will be removed (up to two feet in gardens) and replaced with clean soil (from a borrow area the state owns on the west side of I-90). The soil will be amended with certified weed-free compost and then seeded. Residential yards will be replanted with fresh sod. Water trucks will keep dust under control through the duration of the project.

Next up on the cleanup horizon is the Trestle area in Deer Lodge. See Clark Fork River Cleanup Work On Tap for 2011.

Summer Cleanup and a Design Review Team for the Clark Fork River

March 15, 2010

A design review team soon will be established to offer stakeholders and the public an opportunity to weigh in on the Upper Clark Fork River Superfund cleanup, which state officials say will begin in Deer Lodge this summer.

That was one of the outcomes of a recent meeting with agencies and public stakeholders to discuss the progress of the river cleanup. On Feb. 23 a CFRTAC meeting in Helena convened the Environmental Protection Agency, the Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality and the Montana Natural Resource Damage Program, agency consultants, the Opportunity Citizens Protection Association, the Clark Fork Coalition, and several CFRTAC board members.

The meeting had been organized because state agencies and the EPA seemed to be at an impasse over a debate on project design issues. CFRTAC board president Kathy Hadley, who, with her husband Wayne, owns a small ranch along the Clark Fork, expressed frustration with the inaction along the Clark Fork. She encouraged them to listen to the science and move forward, move forward quickly. "The governor and president talk about green jobs - we've got a $100 million in the bank. Let's get going," she said.

But first the state agencies and the EPA must resolve some key differences of opinion on the cleanups' design and data collection issues. The state is designated the cleanup's lead but the EPA plays an oversight role. At issue is whether the EPA's Riparian Evaluation System (RipES) is the be-all and end-all for the design, as determined by the Clark Fork's 2004 Record of Decision, or whether it's one tool of several in designing river cleanups.

RipES was collaboratively developed by the EPA and its consultants from industry and academia and is under consideration for use by other EPA region on mine waste cleanups. In 2006-07, the EPA and its contractors used RipES to assess the first 46 miles of the Clark Fork's floodplain and 116 streambank miles. The system divides the site into polygons and looks at the stability of streambanks, the extent of exposed tailings, known as slickens, and also the area of impacted and slightly impacted soils and vegetation. RipES is also a tool for identifying field data gaps needed for individual cleanup designs.

Subsequent sampling by the state in 2009, the DEQ has found contamination more widespread than predicted under RipES, particularly in the depth of the contamination. In the uppermost 3.5 miles of river, 250 test pits were dug, revealing contamination more than six feet deep in some places.

The difference between the EPA and the DEQ's sampling is important: How the agencies test will determines what it will find, and consequently how much it will remove. But there isn't enough funding to remove all the contamination from the floodplain, which even if there were, it could possibly jeopardize the serpentine river's channel stability.

The DEQ will continue to sample through 2010, but in the meantime it has also developed a design for the start of the cleanup in Deer Lodge at the Trestle, a railroad crossing over the Clark Fork River in the community that sees a lot of foot traffic. The DEQ and EPA are discussing the design and have differences over the amount to be removed and protection structures such as log cribs. "There are still a lot of factors in this design that need to be worked out," said the DEQ's Brian Bartkowiak.

"We're working through those issues right now," said EPA's Montana Superfund program manager Joe Vranka. "Our goal is the same as yours, to get some construction, to get some things implemented."

DEQ Director Richard Opper said starting the cleanup is a "huge priority" for both the EPA and DEQ. "We both recognize it's an unbelievable opportunity and want to make sure it's done right." Where feasible, he said, the agencies should err on the side of more tailings removal rather than less.

Both the state and EPA say they will resolve their differences over cleanup designs in time to have a work plan for the Trestle area in Deer Lodge, which will be implemented by late summer or early fall. "If we (the DEQ and EPA) don't' work it out, we will have failed," Opper said.

Other agency commitments that came out of that meeting:

• Soft engineering of stream banks will be preferred over harder approaches, such as rip-rap;
• Reach A, the very headwaters of the Clark Fork, will be cleaned up in 2011;
• A public meeting on the cleanup will be held in the spring or summer.

In discussing cleanup designs, the agency officials were asked if there was an opportunity for public involvement. Chris Brick, science director for the Clark Fork Coalition (and a Milltown technical advisor to CFRTAC), suggested a design review team, saying part of Milltown's success thus far has been because of the design review team. And the river, compared to Milltown or even Silver Bow Creek, is a much more difficult cleanup.

Since 2005, CFRTAC has been part of the Milltown Design Review Team (DRT), a process which has allowed the public a role in the design of cleanup. The Milltown team includes representatives from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the DEQ, NRDP, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Missoula County and CFRTAC, the latter two representing the public interest. The Milltown DRT offered comments on technical aspects of the cleanup and helped ensure integration with restoration and even redevelopment goals. The DRT meetings and monthly tours also provided CFRTAC and Missoula County opportunities to share information with the public.

Agency officials, from the DEQ, NRDP and EPA, agreed to the idea and said the DEQ will propose the workings later this spring. Visit cfrtac.org for details as they emerge.

DalSoglio has worked in the Helena office for 20 years and replaces John Wardell, who died in a climbing accident last summer. “He was a wonderful mentor and very supportive of me for a lot of years,” DalSoglio told the IR. “He was very good at giving people opportunities. He trained me so well for so many things that I didn’t have to walk into this job cold. I knew the issues and the players.”

DalSoglio spent a decade working on Superfund issues and was a project manager for the Milltown site in the early 1990s. With a background in public administration and political science, she's a bit different than most EPA staff, with education in the sciences or engineering.  “My degrees involve how citizens and governments make decisions, how people come together to make policy decisions,” DalSoglio said.

Read the article here.

First have a look at this article on the state of the Clark Fork's fishery, which, according to the report, is settling into a healthy state.

Next is an article on Gov. Schweitzer's effort to get the city of Helena to propose a way fund a new historical museum lest it be moved, possibly with $40 million of Natural Resource Damage Program funds, to Butte. Here's a reaction to that idea in an op-ed by Chris Brick of the Clark Fork Coalition.

Here's an article on an update the state gave the Missoula County Commissioners concerning the removal of the Stimson Mill's cooling pond, which is contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. While not a part of the Milltown Superfund project, the Stimson cleanup is neighboring and does affect the Blackfoot River restoration effort. A public meeting will be held March 16 in Bonner at 7 p.m. to discuss the proposal. Read more here.

Superfund cleanups in the upper Clark Fork River Basin were a substantial focus of the 6^th Clark Fork Symposium held last week at the University of Montana.

The two-day event, held every five years since 1985, kicked off with a state of the Clark Fork River by UM professor Vicki Watson. Dr. Watson offered an overview of current conditions, trends, challenges and actions. The river is showing some encouraging signs of recovery, such as a 2009 sampling of macroinvertebrates ( e.g. aquatic insects like stoneflies) that showed the stream, with 10 years of cleanup and restoration work behind it, moved from a severely impaired to moderately impaired category. Still plenty of challenges remain aside from the cleanup. Among them are climate change and population growth, both of which place demands on the river's water. Some 87 miles of the upper Clark Fork are considered chronically dewatered.

Dr. Watson nonetheless found encouragement in the amount of resources dedicated to restoring the Clark Fork River. The EPA and NRDP (and BP-ARCO) alone account for more than billion dollars in funding for the river. Numerous other agencies are involved as well. And, she pointed out, it's a long term commitment. "Watershed keeping is like housekeeping, it's never over."

Joel Chavez from the Montana DEQ talked about the ongoing cleanup and restoration work on more than 21 miles of Silver Bow Creek. That effort, led by the state with EPA oversight, began in 1999 involves removing and shipping more than four million tons of floodplain contamination to BP-ARCO's repository. The agency is also building a new stream, one that will be allowed to move naturally across the floodplain. It's an example of integrated remediation and restoration, and one that's come in under budget. (An estimated $30 to $50 million will be returned to the NRDP and spent elsewhere.)

The upper reaches of Silver Bow Creek, now a decade into recovery, look like a stream on the mend. The creek has seen the return of some early pioneer trout, including a 13-inch cutthroat. Wildlife, from bears to bighorns, and some 70 bird species have made use of the restored sections of the stream. Chavez said the work and the recovery will be monitored for at least 20 years. "It doesn't take very long to make a big mess but it takes a long time and a lot of money to clean it up," he said.

On the Clark Fork River, Chavez said the cleanup is "a little bit different" given that many of the sites are private, productive ag land. Early success will help convince landowners about the cleanup. Fortunately, the cleanup will largely start on the uppermost reach of the Clark Fork on land owned by BP-ARCO. "The first one you do has to be the best."

Once in full swing, Chavez said there will be two to three major construction projects ongoing along the river per year.

Carol Fox of the NRDP gave an overview of the state's lawsuits against ARCO that created the fund and highlighted the cooperation among agencies, calling it an "intricate spider web." The program has seen success in the upper river, particularly the Milltown and Silver Bow Creek projects.

Pat Saffel, fisheries biologist with the FWP, said the agency's vision for the Clark Fork is "an ecologically restored river that is a source of enjoyment for the people, economic growth and pride." The agency is working the NRDP to prioritize projects and have done fishery and habitat assessments on 120 upper Clark Fork tributaries. Priorities for projects will be to restore the mainstem, improve the tribs, and enhance native fisheries.

Butte legislator Jon Sesso recounted the history of the five square mile Butte Superfund site. Focused on soil and water, goals in Butte are to eliminate human contact with contaminants for residents, to remove or cap contaminated soils and to control contaminated runoff. Sesso described numerous cleanup efforts throughout the city, in places such as East Butte, Timber Butte and Missoula Gulch over the last two decades. And some sites have been redeveloped with energy-efficient affordable housing, ball parks and trails.

And for lessons learned about 25 years of Butte Superfund effort, Sesso turned to the Laws of Ecology from famed biologist Barry Commoner:

• Everything is connected to everything else.
• Everything must go somewhere.
• Nature knows best.
• There's no such thing as a free lunch.

For additional coverage, see the Montana Kaimin and the Missoulian.

A new website explores the  role of public participation in shaping the Record of Decision (i.e. remedy or clean-up) for Superfund sites in the upper Clark Fork River Basin.

The website, Science, Society & Superfund: A Social History of America's Largest Superfund Site, is an outgrowth of a National Science Foundation-funded study led by Montana Tech professor and CFRTAC volunteer Pat Munday. Though specifically a comparative study of several sites in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin of western Montana -- including Butte, Anaconda, Silver Bow Creek, the Clark Fork River, and Milltown Dam -- the results study is of general interest to anyone that wonders how grassroots citizens' groups can effectively influence Superfund clean-up decisions.

The site features numerous presentations on the upper Clark Fork, archival files of agency documents and press coverage summaries from the 1980s and 90s.