Join us for an expert-led tour of the country's largest Superfund site, once a huge copper pit mine now a toxic man-made lake of extremely acidic water.

From the Visitor Center, we will travel to the Berkeley Pit, where we will view the Pit and hear from local experts on the history and science of the site. Continuing up the Butte Hill, we will visit the Granite Mountain Memorial near the northwest rim of the Berkeley Pit.

The memorial commemorates the 1917 Granite Mountain-Speculator mine fire, the largest hard rock mining disaster in U.S. history, and provides excellent views of a historic mining landscape.  The tour will continue to the reclaimed Alice Pit, another former open pit mine to the north of the Berkeley. We will walk the reclaimed Alice Knob above the pit, now a public park, enjoying 360 degree views of western Montana, including views of five different mountain ranges.

From 1955 until 1982, over one billion tons of rock was mined from the Berkeley Pit. Situated on the northeastern side of the town of Butte, Montana, the Berkeley swallowed whole neighborhoods and impacted the local environment forever. Copper from the Berkeley helped to electrify America's post World War II economy and the rest of the developing world. Today, the Berkeley Pit holds more than 40 billion gallons of water laden with heavy metals and arsenic, and it sits at the head of the largest complex of Superfund environmental clean-up sites in the U.S. along 120 miles of the mining-impacted Clark Fork River.

The Berkeley Pit Public Education Committee and the Clark Fork Watershed Education Program will lead a tour to the Berkeley Pit and other sites in the area that show the impact of over 100 years of underground and open pit mining on the Montana landscape. The tour is open to anyone, and transportation will be provided. We will visit the Butte Visitor Center, the Berkeley Pit, the Granite Mountain Memorial, and the Alice Pit.

DETAILS AND DIRECTIONS:
We will meet at the Butte Visitor Center, 1000 George Street, Butte, MT 59701 at 1pm, and end back at the Butte Visitor Center at approximately 3pm.

Space is limited to 25 people

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Obscura Day is an international celebration of unusual places taking place around the world on March 20, 2010. It is sponsored by Atlas Obscura, a guide to the world's wonders, curiosities, and esoterica. To find out more about the Atlas and Obscura Day, or to find out how you can host an event in your city, visit ObscuraDay.com, or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

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More about the Berkeley Pit on Atlas Obscura

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