Comments on: The Pit of Life and Death

By: Spoonyplains916

Spoonyplains916 — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 15:21:22 +0000

This was epic i am the only personn her that commented in 2022

By: jarvisloop

jarvisloop — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:58:04 +0000

Note to self: Finished.

By: djc680ne

djc680ne — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 13:33:25 +0000

Spent a lot of time in Butte as a kid always visiting my fathers family on what was usually a extended stay well past our welcome I’m sure. For whatever reasons and I don’t know why but from all these years in life and being 39 yrs old… I am just now learning of this “pit”. Now I can remember any commute or trip to the bar (to eat pork tenderloin sandwiches of course) always on snowmobiles, the statue that let me know we were finally there and the feelings of safe, cross-country ski, fools gold, ice skating on the rink at the school in front of grandma and grandpa’s house, fireworks and more fireworks after many years spending 4th of July (best memories) along with watching helicopter tour rides were just a few memories I recall. But finally as a kid in a long car ride there seeing Butte cradled in a Mountain bowl and as the drive I knew was coming to a end as we went through the last of the surrounding Mountain tops there sat what I always pictured in story books or Christmas movies of a town tucked away so hidden by miles of Mountainous terrain and safely at home I NEVER recall seeing a pit or that nothing in a slight memory in my head do I ever recall it being any topic of interest or knowledge ever spoken of…. I guess early and late 80’s and mid 90’s it wasn’t a topic of favourable memory after being abandoned in 1983. Hmmm.

By: AJ

AJ — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 18:57:18 +0000

**”Richest Hill on Earth.”

By: Aphmau101

Aphmau101 — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 17:13:08 +0000

i would NOT want to take a swim in here XD

By: Aphmau101

Aphmau101 — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 17:01:43 +0000

huh interesting….

By: Terry ross

Terry ross — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 02:18:45 +0000

Last time I was in Butte, a week ago, the pit was in Butte. Did someone move it without telling me?

By: Evel K

Evel K — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 20:44:55 +0000

Hey, nice article. I had to comment because I was born and raised in Butte, Montana, and couldn’t believe it when I scrolled down the list of Greatest Hit articles and saw a photo of the Berkely Pit! (Which, of course, any Butte native recognizes at a glance.) The fog is, apparently, not dangerous to the public, even though it gathers precipitation from the Pit, because the heavy metals in the water are too heavy to be picked up as the water evaporates (think of boiling salt water, and how the salt is left behind after all of the water is boiled away.) However, the soil of many parts of uptown Butte is contaminated with arsenic and other metals. From what I know, for a while the mining waste was transported west of the Pit, where much of the NW uptown area is today. Clean soil was piled on top of the contaminated soil before building, but only a few feet of it (I don’t eat fruit from any apple trees uptown…) This may have been coincidence, since I don’t know what the expected cancer rates would be for young people in a city Butte’s size (about 30,000 plus some, I believe), but when I was in high school 3 healthy, active girls my age were diagnosed with cancer. One girl’s tumor turned out to be benign, and the other two have died in recent years. I am 25. I’m not meaning to suggest that the mile-wide pit of toxic waste might be increasing cancer rates in the area, but I am a little suspicious. Friends of mine from much more populated areas/larger schools don’t recall hearing about any cases of their peers having cancer (but maybe the small-town nature of Butte accounts for this – my friends from elsewhere may just never have known if their classmates got sick because most of the people in the school didn’t know each other.)

By: Dennis Kender

Dennis Kender — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 04:19:42 +0000

Please get the basic mining history facts straight! The Anaconda Co. sold its mining operations to ARCO; which is the Atlantic Richfield Company. Thus it was ARCO that decided to save some money by turning off the pumps! ARCO knew nothing about underground mining operations and had ceased that form of mining; but continued with the pit mining of the Berkley Pit.

ARCO gave up the entire endeavor as a very bad idea. It has been said to me that it was the ARCO accountants who (not knowing a blasted thing about the material world) suggested that ARCO stop the pumps in order to save something like $10,000 per month as I remember it.

By: Granville Wells

Granville Wells — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 03:00:10 +0000

yu_chan said: “As always, great article!

Now, let me ramble…
…So, let’s say that after some time, they are able to develop cures for cancer and ways to clean up all sorts of pollution and other very powerful things by studying the newly discovered microorganisms of this pit. What would the public image of Anaconda be? Would they be the evil, uncaring, money hungry, pollution mongers like other chemical companies (case in point: Love Canal, etc), or would the fact that they took what they wanted (valuable resources) and left the remainder (unmanagable toxic waste) for someone else to deal with (unknowing citizens fo Butte) be swept under the rug, or even celebrated since it lead to the holy grail of modern science: the “cure for cancer”?”

I go about my daily life not caring about anything. Then my memory goes back to Bisby AZ and a great bigger than life hole. Anaconda is away in South America digging there. Driving thru Colorada I seen whole mountains removed and the little rock left behind. I don’t know of the damage, but it must be great.
A great idea…., Tear down Washington DC and remove all of it to Montana. Without the distractions they could actually pay attention to their job.
Sorry, I was daydreaming.