Silver Bow Creek Spent a Century Poisoned -- Here's What Montana's $215 Million Cleanup Actually Bought

Silver Bow Creek, which drains from Butte into the Clark Fork system, carried copper-mining pollution for about a century and became effectively an open sewer for one of the U.S.’s most damaging copper operations. In 1999, Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) made a payment that helped trigger a long cleanup process. A new video from Slow Repair examines where the money went and what changed, noting that metals such as arsenic, copper, and zinc contaminated waterways and harmed fish and invertebrates, disrupting the entire food chain for trout. While Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has reintroduced fish and monitored water quality, recovery varies by stretch.