UBMC Open House provides information on clean up, draws sparse community participation

An open house designed to provide a look back at the 2018 cleanup efforts at the Upper Blackfoot Mining Complex drew only about half a dozen area residents to the Lincoln Community Hall Thursday evening, Dec. 13.

Unlike past community meetings, which took the form of presentations of facts and figures followed by a question and answers session, Montana Department of Environmental Quality opted for the Open House format to provide interested residents with a chance to talk one-on-one with project partners.

"The objective was to make it educational and to have an opportunity for the various experts to present and share their expertise," UBMC project manager David Bowers said. "These guys put in a lot of effort and I think they've got some really neat things to share, had we gotten a better turnout."

Informational displays, handouts, videos and survey and analysis equipment used on the project were set up at the Hall, with representatives from the DEQ, Montana's Natural Resource Damage Program, the U.S. Forest Service, Pioneer Technical Services and Missouri River Contracting on hand to answer questions.

Nick Miller, vice president and construction manager for Missouri River Contracting, took the opportunity to explain the history of the company and the work they've done at the UBMC.

A relatively new company founded in 2016 by former employees of Helena Sand and Gravel, MRC brought to the project a team with experience working at the UBMC. They took over the excavation and removal of mine waste in 2016.

"Phase Three was our first job," Miller said.

MRC subcontracted the stream reconstruction work to smaller companies. This year, Streamworks of Lincoln won the job of rebuilding the stream channel from the confluence of Mike Horse and Bear Trap Creeks to the Water Treatment plant. As part of the job, Streamworks also rebuilt a section of Anaconda Creek where it joins Bear Trap Creek to form the Blackfoot River.

Beau Downing, the restoration project manager for the Montana Natural Resource Damage Program, said this year's work revealed less naturally occurring metals in the canyon above the Water Treatment Plant than expected, which meant they didn't have to do as robust a streambed restoration as they had planned for that area.

"We didn't encounter all the stuff we thought we would, so we were able to back off that," he said, adding that the cost savings there allowed them to put in more robust habitat features. Downing, whose agency oversees streambed restoration and revegetation, said they hope to begin revegetating that area next spring, "before trucks start spinning."

The work completed this year is already showing positive signs for native fish populations. By the time the site closed for the season, Downing said cutthroats from Anaconda Creek had moved down into some of the pools near the confluence with Bear Trap Creek. A Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist is expected to visit the site early next fall to evaluate fish recruitment into the restored areas.

"My guess is we'll be moving fish up into Bear Trap, probably lower Mike Horse," Downing said.

Forest Service representatives have attended past UBMC meetings, but the open house provided a look at the role the agency will play in 2019's restoration efforts.

Steve Opp, Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Minerals Program manager, and Beach Hasting, the Lincoln Ranger District Mineral administrator, explained that four adits in the UBMC area are slated for closure by the Forest Service next year, with the help of a mine closure team from Region 4 that travels around the nation helping with such projects.

Plans call for a shaft near Highway 200 to be closed with a metal grate that will allow the claimholders access to the mine. Hastings said two other adits will be 'foamed in' by building a bulkhead in the shaft and filling the entrance with a two-part, medium-density expandable foam that will then be covered with soil and rocks. He said they're still looking at options for an adit in Porcupine gulch that's filled with water.

Opp said the Forest Service will also deal with depressions in the UBMC that could develop into hazards. The depressions were created by vertical shafts – called stopes - that chased veins of minerals upward, nearly to the surface.

In terms of mine waste removals more than 171,000 cubic yards of mine waste came out of the UBMC this year.

The area from the Bear Trap and Mike Horse Creek confluence down to the boundary of the project area - as outlined in the 2007 Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis- was divided into a base bid area and two "Additive Alternate" areas. MRC completed removals through the Base bid and Additive Alternate A.

Since the project began in 2014, nearly 861,000 cubic yards of mine waste have been removed from the area. Approximately 85,600 cubic yards remains in Additive Alternate B.

MRC is slated to complete the remaining removals in 2019, under the same contract. The process to cap and close the UBMC repository on Section 35 planned to begin next year as well.

The money remaining from the 2008 settlement is expected to fund work down to the EE/CA boundary, but Bowers said some areas of mine waste will remain. Those include a few small upland waste areas from the ARCO/ASARCO days as well as the estimated 46,000 cubic yards of mine waste that settled in the Upper Marsh following the 1975 Mike Horse dam washout.

Bowers said the upland areas can be finished up by using Resource Development Grants, but excavations in the Upper Marsh would take much more funding and would likely require partnering with an organization such as Trout Unlimited. He said monitoring and sampling will need to be done on the Upper Marsh before they can determine whether removal is the best option.

Natural recovery, in which contamination levels are diminished as clean sediments mix with the contaminated material, may mitigate the need for excavations. Likewise, beaver have moved into the area in recent years. While their ponds don't promote the mixing of sediments, Bowers said clean sediment flowing into the marsh instead settle out and serve as a capping mechanism.

"It was long enough ago that we did the initial study that taking a step back and finding out what we've got now as a new baseline is just practical," Bowers said.

If excavations are required, they would be in the section of the marsh east of an old Anaconda Company drill road, which acted as a sort of dam for the tailings that rushed downstream in 1975. Bowers said that area isn't home to any of the fens or vegetation that are unique to area.

Future removals present one possible challenge: where to put the waste.

Bowers said the old Paymaster repository could potentially be re-opened to accept waste from the upland sites, but he admitted removing the 46,000 cubic yards of waste in the Upper Marsh would probably require a new repository, since plans currently call for the UBMC Repository to be fully capped in 2020.

"That's yet to be determined, but I would imagine that would be the case," he said. "It's really not practical to go back in and peel this back and undo everything."

With a decision on the Upper Marsh unlikely in the near future, Bowers said it's premature to speculate on what may or may not happen.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," he said, adding they want to be a partner with the community and landowners in the project area. "You've got to do the legwork with everybody, so everyone understands what the objectives are."