Excerpt from Mountain Outlaw Magazine, June 2017. Read the full story here.
PRICKLY PEAR CREEK flows out of Montana’s Elkhorn Mountains and winds through the scenic countryside of the Helena Valley. Although the creek primarily passes through bucolic pastures and grasslands, a portion of the waterway washes through rehabilitated habitat at the former American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) facility in East Helena.
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ASARCO declared bankruptcy in 2005 and the resulting court settlement placed the nonprofit Montana Environmental Trust Group in charge of evaluating the site’s environmental impact and cleaning up the property. This multi-year project includes the rehabilitation of a 1.25-mile stretch of Prickly Pear Creek.
“When we started, Prickly Pear Creek was just this long channel that had been moved and relocated by ASARCO going back to the 1800s,” said Cindy Brooks, METG director. “The condition that it was in when we started was very unnatural.”
The Prickly Pear Creek rehabilitation project began in 2009 as part of the demolition and restoration of the former ASARCO facility. METG created a diversion bypass to redirect the creek away from contaminated areas on the south end of the smelter site, and the remaining slag pile next to the northern stretch of the creek.