Atlantic Richfield and Montana Resources, two mining companies, will spend an estimated 87 million dollars to build and run a treatment plant for highly toxic water from Berkeley Pit, a former copper mine in Montana that is one of the largest bodies of contaminated water in the US. Berkeley, covering more than 60 km~2, is the most visible of four areas within a Superfund site that includes century-old mines along the Clark Fork River in southwestern Montana.The cleanup, which will be ongoing for a decade, is expected to cost Atlantic Richfield more than 1 billion dollars. Topsoil in the area contains arsenic and heavy metals, including aluminium, cadmium and lead and the water in the pit is extremely toxic. Tracy Stone-Manning, executive director of the Clark Fork Coalition, a watchdog group, said building a treatment plant addresses only part of the problem. "Its a stunning thing," she said. "At this point, we do not know how to detoxify Berkeley. We do not know how to make the threat of that pit go away, except to pump and treat that water forever."
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