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Events/Environment · 2002

Berkeley Pit cleanup settlement

Environment, 25 March 2002, United States.

What happened

The US and Montana announced an 87 million dollar settlement with ARCO and five other companies to control acidic, arsenic and metal-bearing mine drainage in the Berkeley Pit at Butte.1,2

Why it matters

The EPA called it the nation's largest body of contaminated water.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Grasberg mine area: Wikidata inception date

    The Papua copper-gold mine is dated to 1972 in Wikidata.3

  2. Benguela Railway closes to Zairian traffic

    Political differences between Zaire and Angola shut the shortest route for Shaba exports.4,5

  3. Roros Mining Town inscribed

    UNESCO World Heritage listing event.6

  4. Panguna mine halted

    The closure became tied to the Bougainville conflict.7,8

  5. Northparkes block cave air blast

    Northparkes was the first block caving mine in Australia, and the Coroner's findings shaped how block caving is regulated there.9,10

  6. BHP leaves Ok Tedi after river damage claims

    It links a miner's exit from a mine to claims over river damage.11,12

  7. Copiapo mining accident (33 miners trapped)

    Copiapo mining accident (33 miners trapped). Wikidata records 0 deaths.13

  8. Mount Polley tailings dam breach

    The panel reported on 30 January 2015 and made recommendations to reduce the chance of tailings failures.14,15

Open the full timeline

Where next

Mines

Located inBerkeley PitThe pit lake formed in November 1983 after pumps stopped in April 1982.16Came out ofButte copper districtRead what happened near Butte copper district: Berkeley Pit cleanup settlement.16

Events

ExamplesSummitville mine environmental crisisAnother US cleanup test case: an 87 million dollar settlement over the Berkeley Pit in 2002.1

Places

Located inButteSee the place where this happened: Butte.1

Sources

  1. US and Montana reach agreement with mining companies to clean up Berkeley Pit (25 Mar 2002) US Environmental Protection Agency
  2. Berkeley Pit (item Q820869), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Wikidata item Q119297 (Grasberg Mine)
  4. Zaire SNCZ Railway Project, Staff Appraisal Report 1986-ZR (25 April 1979) World Bank
  5. Wikidata item Q223914 (Lobito)
  6. Roros Mining Town and the Circumference UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  7. History: Panguna Mine Bougainville Copper Limited
  8. Panguna mine (item Q17060798), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  9. 1999 Northparkes Air Blast case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  10. Parkes (item Q605513), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  11. BHP lawsuit re Papua New Guinea (Ok Tedi) Business and Human Rights Resource Centre
  12. Ok Tedi environmental disaster (item Q7081685), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  13. Wikidata item Q214790 (Copiapo mining accident (33 miners trapped))
  14. Final report media release (30 Jan 2015) and report PDF Mount Polley Independent Expert Engineering Investigation and Review Panel
  15. Mount Polley mine (item Q107703678), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  16. The Berkeley Pit and surrounding mine waters of Butte (Gammons and Duaime, 2020), MBMG Special Publication 122 Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0.