THE LANDSCAPE OF COPPER
Views From the Pit
The
Landscape of Copper is a layer of land use that runs throughout
the United States (and the rest of the world), emerging in places
where the mineral is extracted, processed, and used. This industry
forms some of the most dramatic "anthropogenic" landscapes
on earth, and is therefore a special focus area for the CLUI,
which has been cataloguing copper-related sites in its database
and photographic archives since the inception of the organization.
Recently, two public programs focussed on the Landscape of Copper,
in the form of an exhibit at the Center’s Los Angeles exhibition
hall, and presentations by two individuals who, unknown to each
other, have been working independently on sites on separate
ends of the industry: at the source, and at the finishing end
of copper production
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View of Todd Trigsted's
display at
CLUI Los Angeles.
CLUI Photo.
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In late 2000, the Center's
Independent Interpreter program (supported by the Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts), invited Todd Trigsted to present
material about the copper landscape of Butte, Montana, where
he has been living and working for several years as an information
specialist for the Environmental Protection Agency. Trigsted
brought with him a vast collection of images, samples, teaching
aides, and a CD-ROM he had prepared for the Center.
An exhibition of this material was prepared,
and opened to the public on January 19th, 2001, when Trigsted
presented his material to a packed house on opening night. Trigsted
used the CD-ROM, which was projected onto a screen, as the basis
of his presentation, and spoke lucidly about the landscape around
Butte.
Among the superlatives of the region is "the nation's
largest superfund site," which, more accurately, is probably
the nation's longest. It runs 120 miles from the Berkeley copper
pit area, next to downtown Butte, down Silver Bow Creek to the
Clark Fork River towards Missoula. It is within this stretch
of drainage that the costs of a hundred years of copper mining
in Butte are being assessed.
Butte, Montana exists amidst one of the most
churned-up landscapes in the country. Within the circus of mining
landforms (impoundment dams, tailings piles, shafts, drainage
sluiceways, etc) is the Berkeley Pit, a veritable landmark in
the landscape of copper. Though the pit is large by most standards,
1.5 miles wide and 1,800 ft deep, it was started as an open
pit only in 1955, before which copper was extracted from the
earth through 10,000 miles of mineshafts underlying the region
(some of which can be seen poking in to the sides of the pit).
Though the substantial town of Butte exists because of the mines,
portions of the town have ceased to exist because of it too,
removed to accommodate the growing pit.
The mine shut down in 1982, a year after it was
purchased by the oil company ARCO. When ARCO shut off the pumps
that kept the pit dry, in order to save money, the pit began
filling with water laden with heavy metals, flowing through
the mineral rich-rock. The water is still rising in the pit,
and will reach the water table as little as 15 years from now,
at which point the aquifer for the entire region will be engorged
with this concentrated, acidic (pH 2.6) water, which will then
flow down gradient, towards the Columbia River.
The question of how to clean up the pit water
before this happens, and how to clean up the rest of the region,
has produced a new local industry for Butte. Scientists are
working to characterize the pit water itself, performing chemical
analysis and biological surveys. Some believe that the microorganisms
in the pit, strangely adapted to thrive in such an acidic and
toxic environment, may hold the key to bioremediation of the
water. Others are studying these unique organisms for a possible
cure for cancer and other diseases, as these are indeed unusual
creatures. Some, even, have yet to be identified.
Meanwhile, a plant on the edge of the pit intermittently
pumps water out of the pit and through an ion exchange process,
extracting some of the estimated $800,000,000 of the metal that
is suspended in the chemistry of the water. And copper mining
continues by another company, in a new pit, now forming adjacent
to the Berkeley Pit.
Other remediation projects in the area are on
a similarly grand scale. 26 miles of the Silver Bow Creek, which
was the first stage of the "conveyor belt" for the mine's waste
water over the years, is being entirely re-engineered. The contaminated
stream bed is being removed, and placed in sculpted piles above
the banks, and a new bed is being laid. This portion of the
clean-up project is estimated to cost ARCO and the State at
least $200 million.
This is the landscape that Todd Trigsted inhabits,
along with a few hundred scientists and 26,000 residents of
the Butte area. Trigsted's job for the past few years has been
to assimilate the various scientific approaches being applied
to the clean-up projects around Butte into a format that is
legible to a broader audience. Through funding from ARCO and
the EPA, Trigsted has created public displays, multimedia programs,
and physical as well as computer-based models. He has conducted
videotaped interviews with most of the scientists involved in
the project, which include geologists, sedimentologists, seismologists,
biochemists, microbiologists, mining engineers, and hydraulogists.
Some people wonder if someone funded primarily
by the company with so much at stake in Butte (Arco), can maintain
their independence, objectivity, and even if they can be trusted
at all. However, anyone who came to see Trigsted's presentation
will no doubt have been convinced that Trigsted is indeed able
to convey the contentious issues about Butte in a manner that
adds to the overall knowledge about the problems there, without
endorsing one view over another. Trigsted, who was originally
trained as an artist, is a coherent, entertaining and engaging
medium, and a portal to the vast and fascinating world at the
upstream end of the landscape of copper.
The Landscape of
Copper: Curtis Cravens, Laurel Hill Works
About the Landscape of Copper
