Old mines still plague Montana's Clark Fork

Why one of the nation's largest Superfund river sites can't address pollution from abandoned mines.

A century ago, one of North America’s largest copper booms rattled the river’s headwaters in Butte. Several hundred mines burrowed beneath the city, and in 1908, a flood washed tons of contaminated sediments from those mines into the river. Arsenic, copper, zinc, lead and cadmium contaminated millions of tons of sediment along 120 miles of the river’s banks — all the way to Missoula. The river’s legendary but struggling trout all but vanished.

LINK (via: High Country News)

Those Poor Stranded Boeing 737s

Officials don't know exactly how they're going to remove those three Boeing 737 fuselages that tumbling into the Clark Fork River.

LINK (via:Gizmodo)

"I have had it with these motherf*&king planes on these motherf*#king trains!"

Clean-up crews in Montana have their work cut out for them Saturday morning as they try to recover Boeing fuselages that crashed into the river on their way to Renton, Washington.

A freight train derailed in western Montana, sending three cars carrying 737, 777, and 747 aircraft components down a steep embankment and into the Clark Fork River.

LINK (via:KATU)

No just imagine if that train had been carrying Bakken crude.

“When I first thought about Silver Bow Creek, I thought no self-respecting trout would live there”

The headwaters of the Clark Fork River should soon become a popular fishing destination after more than a century of lifelessness.

LINK (via:The Missoulian)

May Slab of the Month: Clark Fork Rainbow

Samuel Bergman on the upper Clark Fork River.  A dark red San Juan Worm slapped this piece of rotundness.