The Mike Horse Dam, built in 1941 at the headwaters of the Blackfoot, the river celebrated in the Norman Maclean novel “A River Runs Through It,” failed during a 1975 flood that washed the waste downstream, killing fish and other aquatic life in the upper 10 miles of the river.
The dam is “a ticking time bomb,” Bruce Farling of the conservation group Trout Unlimited said Tuesday. The group began pressing for dam removal in 1987.
The dam, on a Blackfoot tributary called Beartrap Creek in the Helena National Forest about 16 miles east of Lincoln, contains mine waste - with more accumulating beneath the dam and next to it.
Spread out, the quantities would cover about 14 acres, District Ranger Amber Kamps said.
The decision signed by Regional Forester Tom Tidwell requires hauling the contaminated material to mining company Asarco's property about 1 1/2 miles northwest of the dam. The agency estimated dam and waste removal plus related projects will cost about $27 million, and said responsibility for the expense rests with Asarco - and possibly Atlantic Richfield Co.
Calls seeking comment Tuesday from Asarco attorney Doug McAllister and engineer Chris Pfahl were not returned immediately.
Atlantic Richfield's regional manager, Robin Bullock, said the company should not have any financial responsibility.
“We never owned or operated the facility,” Bullock said. “We did not generate any of the waste.”
Bullock said the Forest Service likely mentioned Atlantic Richfield because of its acquisition of assets and liabilities held by the old Anaconda Copper Mining Co., which conducted some exploration of the Mike Horse area to gauge potential for a mine.
Years ago Asarco, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2005, acquired the Mike Horse Mine and Milling Co. The Mike Horse company mined lead and zinc near the Blackfoot.
Mining ceased in the early 1950s, according to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
Forest Service engineer Bob Kirkpatrick said it would likely be a few years before the dam is removed.
The conservation director for the Clark Fork Coalition, a Missoula-based environmental group, called the Forest Service's decision “great news for the Blackfoot.”
“We are going to get rid of this toxic threat that is hanging over the entire river,” Matt Clifford said.
The push to completely remove the dam included Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who said in a statement Tuesday that the Blackfoot River “is too important to Montanans to risk again on half-measures.”
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