EPA Wants Montana Dam Taken Down

[Judi Lynn]

EPA Wants Montana Dam Taken Down

Thursday June 2, 2005 10:01 AM

By SUSAN GALLAGHER
Associated Press Writer

MILLTOWN, Mont. (AP) - Dismantling the aging dam built at the point where the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers meet in western Montana will be the easy part.

It's dealing with the contaminated mud behind the dam - enough to fill a freight train more than 500 miles long - that poses the real challenge, officials say.

The Environmental Protection Agency wants the Milltown Dam, located at the end of the nation's largest Superfund environmental cleanup site, to be taken down around late 2006.
(snip)

There's experience to draw from in removing the dam - Wisconsin alone has eliminated more than 100. But Milltown is different because the mud is tainted with arsenic and other contaminants from mining waste that washed 120 miles down the Clark Fork River.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5047070,00.html

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.....Milltown Dam is a timber-crib dam, built of timbers cut in the Blackfoot Valley and filled with rocks. Concrete slabs were first added to the structure in 1925, in an attempt to reduce undercutting and erosion.

Missoula County wants the dam removed as part of the Superfund cleanup at Milltown Reservoir. Sediments in the pool are contaminated with arsenic, copper and other heavy metals washed down the Clark Fork River during a century of copper mining and smelting in Butte and Anaconda.

"The leaks are just part of what worries us, really," Nielsen said. "I am even more concerned about seismic stability and about flooding and about the potential for ice to lop off the superstructure of that dam and cause a catastrophic release of sediment downstream."
(snip)

http://www.missoulian.com/specials/two-rivers/

[truthisfreedom]

1. can we get a group "eww" going here?

eww!

[bdot]

2. Let's go for a swim!

[xchrom]

3. the extent of our polluted environment -- now that's shock and awe.

[OKthatsIT]

4. better get used to it...and much much more$$

Remember, we, the people, are now strapped with ALL TOXIC CLEAN UPS. No corporations, factories are obligated, to clean up their shit, anymore. They dump, we clean.

[ovidsen]

5. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

And no matter who funds it... government or big business... we're gonna pay.

[vajraroshana]

6. according to the article, that's not the case

"Financial responsibility for the $100 million project rests largely with Atlantic Richfield Co., which acquired assets and liabilities of the Anaconda Co. mining company. Funds also will come from the dam's owner, Northwestern Corp."