Natural resource damage restoration in the upper Clark Fork Basin, Montana: A policy perspective

The Clark Fork begins its 360 mile journey to the Columbia River as Silver Bow Creek near Butte, Montana. In the 1860s gold was discovered in the Silver Bow and its tributaries. By 1900 the region's numerous mining operations were consolidated by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. In the 1960s Silver Bow Creek was an industrial ditch, and much of the surrounding landscape poisoned.;Under 1980's Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or "Superfund") natural resource trustees can sue polluters to restore damaged natural resources, and seek compensation for the lost and diminished services they provide.;The Anaconda Company was bought by the Atlantic Richfield Company in 1977. In 1983 Montana's trustee, the state's governor, sued ARCO under the natural resource damage provisions of CERCLA. This dissertation is a policy history of the litigation and restoration that followed.;Several conclusions are reached. First, much of Montana's environmental policy evolved since the 1960s when its legislature passed environmental laws emulating their federal counterparts. Another finding is how damages were perceived. Many in the traditional mining cities of Butte and Anaconda did not think that the damages were significant. In 1981 arsenic was found in Missoula area wells a hundred miles downstream on the Clark Fork. Thus it was the citizens of Missoula that prompted official investigations.;Also examined was the state's natural resource damage restoration program. It encourages a post-mining regionalism, funding restoration projects that see natural resources as cultural amenities, and fosters a sense of the future. The program also promotes the integration of the region's "restoration economy.";Finally, this research presents a case, not documented elsewhere, suggesting that the two components of environmental management envisioned by CERCLA, remediation and restoration, may not coexist as peacefully as federal policymakers envisioned. This points to the need for unified strategy to better manage remediation and restoration as one activity.