Reclamation of Contaminated Lands 



Although several hundred acres of land in the Butte and 

 Anaconda areas have been reclaimed by the Anaconda Minerals 

 Company, a large number of acres of contaminated land remain 

 in the upper reaches of the Clark Fork Basin. It is almost 

 certain that reclamation of at least some of those acres will 

 be attempted in the future. At present, the lack of 

 perennial vegetation in many areas of the Deer Lodge Valley 

 causes a number of problems, including wind erosion, 

 increased surface runoff, increased recharge of the shallow 

 ground water system, and possibly increased heavy metals 

 loading to surface and ground water. If the quality and 

 productivity of the vegetation in the upper Clark Fork Basin 

 were improved, an increase in land quality and overall 

 environmental quality in the region would result (USDA 

 1985a) . 



Much of the future reclamation efforts will likely be 

 through the Super fund program, although projects using other 

 sources of funding are currently in progress. Any major 

 revegetation endeavors would have to be preceded by detailed 

 trials and evaluations prior to large-scale application. A 

 few such evaluations have been recently conducted, are on- 

 going, or are in the planning stages. These and activities 

 by AMC are summarized in the following sections. 



Spangler Ranch Study 



A study to identify reclamation techniques for heavy 

 metals contaminated agricultural lands in Deer Lodge, Powell, 

 and Silver Bow counties was initiated in 1984. The project 

 was administered by the Headwaters RC&D and received 

 financial support through a grant from DNRC. The project 

 consisted of a forage-establishment phase and a hydrogeology 

 phase. 



The two-year forage-establishment study was conducted by 

 Schafer and Associates (1986) on the Spangler Ranch about six 

 miles southeast of the Anaconda Smelter. The purpose of the 

 study was to develop and test techniques for reestablishing 

 forages on land contaminated by mining. The affected area, 

 nearly devoid of vegetation, was once-productive dairy farm 

 land but had been irrigated with tailings-laden water 

 through the early 1900s (Schafer and Associates 1986) . 



A number of treatments were tested, including three 

 different liming rates, several different forage species, and 

 a variety of tillage methods. The results of these trials 

 were: 



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