End Land Use and Community Assets

Copper Mountain Recreation Complex Source: Courtesy of the Butte-Silver Bow Department of Reclamation and Environmental Services

End land use is an important consideration when environmental reclamation activities are interwoven and integrated with residential areas in the community, as they are in Butte.

In addition, Butte’s historic preservation efforts needed to be balanced with environmental cleanup. The regional historic preservation plan was developed to provide equal respect between economic land use, historic preservation, and environmental issues. All these pieces were considered while choosing remedial actions to protect human health and the environment.

The NRD program originally resisted providing funds for rebuilding Thompson Park, nine miles south of Butte, because they didn’t recognize that beneficial end-land use is as important a goal as the restoration of the natural resource. However, replacing the lost recreational resources by parlaying the restoration program with the remedial program has contributed to impressive end land use strategies that benefited the community.

Environmental reclamation with end land use in mind created many community assets, including the Missoula ball fields, the Alice knob walking trail, the Granite Mountain Memorial interpretive area, Foreman's Park, the Chamber of Commerce Building and the Blacktail trail, the BA&P trail, Copper Mountain Park, Skyline Park, and Big Butte.