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Consultants recommend Butte Mine Waste Repository as preferred site for priority soils; council hears plans for multi‑year hauling
Summary
Consultants recommended using the existing Butte Mine Waste Repository to hold about 1.1 million cubic yards of priority soils removed from the Butte Hill, and outlined haul-route options, mitigation measures and a draft schedule that could begin excavation in August.
Atlantic Richfield Company consultant Josh Bryson told the Butte‑Silver Bow Council of Commissioners’ Committee of the Whole that his team’s EPA‑guided siting study recommends the Butte Mine Waste Repository as the preferred location for roughly 1,100,000 cubic yards of mine waste excavated from remediation projects on the Butte Hill.
Bryson said the study evaluated multiple sites — including Westside Soils, Whiskey Gulch, Opportunity Ponds, Interstate Pit, Alice Pit and the Pittsmont Dump — and concluded the Butte Mine Waste Repository is already approved for this use under the 2006 Record of Decision and the 2020 consent decree. “It allows us to begin hauling waste and placing it today as we revise the O&M plan to make it current,” Bryson said.
Why it matters: using an approved repository promises to accelerate cleanup work on corridor projects, but it brings traffic, staging and reclamation tradeoffs that residents and commissioners raised during a lengthy question‑and‑answer period.
Key details in the presentation and Q&A:
- Project size…
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