{"id":3516,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-04-17 19:58:10","latitude":46.02342041423088403462315909564495086669921875,"longitude":-112.5290064812361379154026508331298828125,"title":"Superfund Legislation","subtitle":"","fullsize":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/70d3cb571af02df5b509f9479061e93d.jpg","address":"","all_locations":[],"zoom":17,"creator":["Jon Sesso"],"description":"In 1980, the U.S. Congress, faced with mounting legacy pollution problems across the country (e.g., companies discharging toxic substances in public waterways and landfills), enacted a new federal law – CERCLA, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. The law is commonly referred to as Superfund because provisions of the statute created taxes levied on chemical and oil companies, among others, with proceeds deposited in an independent “fund.” This fund was used to empower the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify and compel responsible parties to clean up hazardous sites, and to pay for cleanups at “orphan” sites where no liable party could be identified. <br />\r\n<br />\r\nThe Superfund statute is quite unique (and controversial) in that it can be enforced retroactively, after the pollution occurred and regardless of whether the polluter (aka, the responsible party) did or did not violate any other environmental laws when creating the hazardous conditions. For Butte, the ramifications of this new law were truly transformational in terms of addressing the pollution impacts of the past that would never have been dealt with otherwise.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nBy 1983, the Butte/Silver Bow Creek Site, including the Berkeley Pit, was among the first sites placed on the Superfund National Priority List – the first of four regional federal Superfund Sites extending over 120 miles from Butte to the Milltown Dam in Milltown along and within the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. Then and still today, these four sites together constitute the largest Superfund site in the United States.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nIn a very significant way Butte’s Superfund story started a few years earlier, in 1976, when the Atlantic Richfield Company (now the British Petroleum/Atlantic Richfield Company, hereinafter referred to as ARCO) bought all Anaconda Company holdings. Hence, when CERCLA became law in 1980, ARCO was on the hook to pay for most of the Superfund cleanup actions in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. Essentially, ARCO would have to pay the tab for all the pollution that occurred under decades of Anaconda Company ownership. Thus began what has now been an over 40-year journey of a multitude of remediation actions compelling ARCO to perform and manage soil and water cleanup work on the Butte Hill, the Berkeley Pit and the Silver Bow Creek corridor/watershed.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nARCO was also responsible for restoration damages in Butte and the Upper Clark Fork River Basin (the second part of CERCLA) that would ultimately lead to a multi-million-dollar ($188 million plus interest earned) settlement with the State of Montana. The funds have been used by the State since 1999, in concert with remedial work, to restore and replace damaged and lost natural resources in the Basin. <br />","sponsor":"Superfund Advisory and Redevelopment Trust Authority and The Foundation for Montana History","accessinfo":"","lede":"Until 1980, there was very little that could be done to abate and mitigate the adverse impacts of Butte&#039;s mining industry on residents and the environment. There were no laws that governed the historic mining activities, and no violations to enforce. Then things changed.","website":"","related_resources":["<a href=\"https://storyofbutte.org/admin/tours/show/108\">Mining Technologies</a>"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/70d3cb571af02df5b509f9479061e93d.jpg":{"id":5722,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"1889 Landscape","description":"Clark&#039;s Colusa Smelter/Boston and Montana Works in 1889, showing a great deal of smoke, barren land, and stripped trees.  | PH154. BSB Archives","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/70d3cb571af02df5b509f9479061e93d.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/d38f3968bf07076c0201b073a79fd094.jpg":{"id":5723,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Looking toward the Hill","description":"View of Butte’s historic district looking toward the Butte Hill. |  Library of Congress photo, 1939","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/d38f3968bf07076c0201b073a79fd094.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/0aa9d03c295a441c573cae5689df7db8.jpg":{"id":5724,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Mountain Con","description":"This view of the Mountain Con Mine, famously “a Mile High and a Mile Deep where everyone is on the level,” shows the close proximity of mining operations to the miners’ homes, and their high tolerance for environmental impacts.  | Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives, C. Owen Smithers Photograph Collection, Smithers.11.237.01","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/0aa9d03c295a441c573cae5689df7db8.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/db0dec6a280eb525441118728ee76e7e.jpg":{"id":5725,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Butte Underground","description":"This map illustrates the extensive underground workings throughout the Butte Hill--thousands of miles of vertical shafts, horizonal tunnels, etc., that comprise the Butte mining complex.  | Courtesy of the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/db0dec6a280eb525441118728ee76e7e.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/a234d997bc848d169f73192b17441ccf.jpg":{"id":5726,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Superfund News Article","description":"The Superfund expansion on the Butte Hill made the headlines in 1985.  | Courtesy of the Montana Standard","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/a234d997bc848d169f73192b17441ccf.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/4640ef11872a80e27ecde3af28611c75.jpg":{"id":5727,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Butte Locations","description":"Butte area Superfund Operable Unit locations.  | Courtesy of the Butte-Silver Bow Department of Reclamation and Environmental Services","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/4640ef11872a80e27ecde3af28611c75.jpg"},"https://storyofbutte.org/files/fullsize/7f3d0662a73f40f8825b509c0c14feb3.jpg":{"id":5728,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Superfund Sites","description":"Regional map of the four Superfund sites – Butte/Silver Bow Creek, Montana Pole and Treating Plant, Anaconda Regional Water and Waste/Warm Springs Ponds, and Clark Fork River/Milltown Dam.  | Courtesy of the Butte-Silver Bow Department of Reclamation and Environmental Services","thumbnail":"https://storyofbutte.org/files/square_thumbnails/7f3d0662a73f40f8825b509c0c14feb3.jpg"}}}