Final load of mine waste removed from UBMC

Representatives from the partner agencies involved in the cleanup of Upper Blackfoot Mining Complex gathered at the repository along Highway 279 Thursday, Sept. 5 to celebrate the arrival of the final load of contaminated material from cleanup effort that began actively removing waste from the Mike Horse area in 2014.

"The hauling is done," said Dave Bowers, the UBMC Project Manager for DEQ. "Highway 200 is going to be free from our menace pretty much for good now. And the repository is going to become a much quieter place."

Since the removals began, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has overseen the removal of nearly 900,000 cubic yards of contaminated mine waste and tailings, an effort that required nearly 44,000 truckloads of material to move from the Mike Horse area to the repository on Section 35.

The total amount of waste hauled from the cleanup area was nearly double the original estimate in the Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis developed by ASARCO and the US Forest Service, in the early 2000's. At the time they estimated there was 450,000-500,0000 cubic yards of waste within the EE/CA boundary, which was the figure used in the 2008 bankruptcy settlement that provided $39 million for the cleanup work.

Nearly 400,000 cubic yards of waste consisted of "blue goo," the fine tailings from the mining heyday of the 1940s that were held in an impoundment behind the Mike Horse Dam. A total of 542,325 cubic yards of contaminated material – more than the highest estimate for the entire UBMC in 2008- were removed from the Mike Horse Dam and tailings impoundment in Bear Trap Creek,

The decision to haul the mine waste six miles from the UBMC to a repository near Highway 279 drew concerns early on. The haul plan raised worries about the potential for spills along the route, contaminated dust, vehicle accidents and other safety issues with so many trucks on the road and, for residents long the haul route, the ongoing noise of hauling.

Shellie Haaland the former project construction manager who was re-assigned in 2018 and left the DEQ early this year, was instrumental in easing those concerns and kept neighbors and the community apprised of the hauling throughout the first three construction seasons from 2014 through 2016, and during the truncated construction season of 2017, when the project was suspended re-evaluate how to proceed with the projects final stages with the settlement funds that remained.

For Bowers, the final load of waste represented a personal milestone as well. Bowers has been involved with the UBMC cleanup effort since 2002, when Asarco first agreed to a cleanup settlement for the site.

At that time, his daughter was a newborn. By the time they reached the bankruptcy settlement, she was old enough to think of him as "a janitor for the environment." Now she's a senior in High school who he said asks intelligent questions about his job.

He said the cleanup effort in general has been going on in some form or another since 1993.

"There's a lot of fits and sports and events along the way you can certainly fill in," he said, noting Arco and Asarco's voluntary removals in the 90's, the six-year temporary standards era of the early 2000's and finally the bankruptcy and award money in 2008.

Bowers said there is still a lot of work remaining to be done at the UBMC, however.

"We still have to finish stream restoration, construction and, plantings, which will go through 2020," he said.

"We should be completely done with floodplain restoration and channel restoration this year," said Beau Downing, restoration project manager for the Montana Natural Resource Damage Program. "The only thing left to do next year will be to plant everything we've completed this year."

This year, they will be re-vegetating the areas restored last year. Work is expected to continue in the UBMC into November, or until they are weathered out.

Bowers said they will also have to determine the final scenario for closing the repository, which may hinge on the results of monitoring in the upper marsh, a wetland estimated to hold more than 40,000 yards of mine waste.

A long-term temporary closure while monitoring the marsh recovery, which would provide for a more secure closure than the year-to-year closures during removals, remains an option.

In June, Bowers said they will have to assess the health of the marsh to decide if additional removals are needed there, but he seemed optimistic that natural recovery was proceeding better than initially expected, due in part to increased beaver activity and willow production in the area.

"We wanted to wait until this year was done, and we can examine several options and the partners will select the best one," he said.

Remediation Division Administrator Jenny Chambers said they plan on having a public meeting this fall to discuss the status of the project sometime this fall, but is concerned about community attendance, since no one other than the newspaper attended the meeting they hosted in June. If a meeting is scheduled, Bowers thinks they will be able use drone technology to provide a birdseye view of the restoration progress for the public.