Post by aztecwin on May 7, 2010 10:59:02 GMT -8
The Clarks Fork River killed by Anaconda Smelters and now on the way to full recovery. Still more to go, but great progress has been made. One of the great trout streams anywhere (Rock Creek) drains into the Clarks Fork near Clinton Montana and it is really good fishing and will stay that way.
The Ceder River that runs into Lake Washington is also a success story.
I would like to see some progress on the San Luis and Santa Margarita Rivers up here in North County, but don't see the will or even a viable way.
Interesting re: Clarks. Will never be the same, but incredible effort and $$$ put into the ongoing restoration of this Superfund site has yielded great improvements. side note...can you imagine what abandoned sites in China look like!!
So the question remains... do you give out the permit on this watershed in the first place?To answer your question directly, the permits would never be issued today without huge numbers of ways to mitigate the discharge both into the Clarks Fork and into the air from what was the tallest smokestack in the world at the time. The problem is that at the time, we had very little knowledge about what was going on with the Anaconda Smelter and even less knowledge about the enviornmental harm that was being done. I would bet that the river will be close to what it was if not completely recoved over time. Mother Nature has many ways to heal herself and some of it is just time.
Another thing you might want to look at some day is the recovery of Tea Kettle mountain after the Anaconda Aluminum Plant was closed down near Columbia Falls. To me it looks like a miracle.