Helena area stream restoration volunteer event - this Saturday!!

Mine waste in the Telegraph Creek floodplain (image source unknown) 

The Pat Barns Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Trout Unlimited-National, and the Little Blackfoot River (near Helena) need you!!

"The Pat Barnes Chapter of Trout Unlimited and TU’s Clark Fork River Project invite you to join us in our efforts to revegetate the restored section of Telegraph Creek at the Lilly Orphan Boy Mine site. In 2016, TU and Montana DEQ removed 9,000 cubic yards of mine waste from Telegraph Creek and restored 350 feet of stream channel in the headwaters of the Little Blackfoot River.

The day will begin with a tour of the restored stretch of Telegraph Creek. Rob Roberts, TU Project Manager, will explain the techniques TU and partners used to reclaim the mine site and reconstruct Telegraph Creek. Following the tour, we will plant native trees and shrubs in the restored area.

Revegetation of this area will protect the stream bank and hillslope, promote native plant growth, and add shade to Telegraph Creek.  Please meet at 8:00 AM at the Van’s Thriftway parking lot on Saturday, September 30th. From there we will drive an hour to the site. Please bring appropriate clothing, footwear, and work gloves. Lunch will be provided.  We will finish the volunteer event around 2pm.

To RSVP please contact Max Lewis ASAP via phone or email at mlewis@tu.org or 207-701-1683. "

Gary Lafontaine wrote of the Little Blackfoot River, "There is no stream more special to me than the Little Blackfoot River. Let me completely protect one drainage in the state, from ranching, mining, logging, and even over fishing, and this would be the one."

If you have not yet explored the Little Blackfoot River or its tributaries, do it.  This fall.  I worked in the valley a few years back doing a fish passage/entrainment project from the mouth all the way up every trib.  I went places and met people in that valley that I will probably never see again.  And, I can tell you one thing, this fishery is about as resilient as one can get.

The Little Blackfoot River is heavily degraded and is heavily relied upon for irrigation. Many of its banks have been hoof sheered right out of existence, and there are fish-eating canals and irrigation dams galore!  Meanwhile, just about every one of the tributaries (Telegraph Creek, Dog, Ontario) have major impacts from historic mining. Yet, the fishery lives on.  The lower river has medium-sized (6-16'') brown trout galore.  In the fall, you might find some bigger ones that come in from the Clark Fork.  This area of the river is hard to get on as the entire valley floor is private cattle ranches but there are many locations to exercise legal MT stream access and there is one FWP access site.  The middle reaches have a mix of browns and westslope cutts and the upper (above Elliston) turns into more of a cutthroat fishery.

The Little Blackfoot is a major and vital tributary to the Upper Clark Fork River, a river that has gone through ecological disasters on an unimaginable scale.  The Upper Clark Fork is currently undergoing a major, and I mean MAJOR, restoration project to remove millions of yards of heavily contaminated mine wastes from the good ol' days in Butte and Anaconda.   Likewise, the tributaries of the Little Blackfoot are receiving some love from TU National and stream restoration badass, Rob Roberts.  Be a part of it and get off your ass to do something good.

Are you a TU member like me that can't just write checks or make donations because you are a broke ass who is following your dreams instead of following the money train?  Well here's your chance to give your "in-kind" donation.  I have always been disappointed in the fly fishing community when it comes to volunteer events.  Fly fishers like to talk but they rarely walk the walk.  Prove me wrong!!

George Grant Chapter of TU will meet to discuss cleanup and restoration of Clark Fork R. and Silver Bow Cr. (updated)

The George Grant Chapter of Trout Unlimited is holding a Board of Directors meeting and the public is invited.  Some folks representing TU and the MT DOJ, as well as, Joe Griffin (retired MT DEQ hydrogeologist and all-around bad-ass) will be giving a presentation on the restoration and mine waste cleanup on Silver Bow Creek and the Upper Clark Fork River.

Updates:

• Casey Hackathorn of Trout Unlimited (national) will present on the Upper Clark Fork and its tributaries.
• Jason Lindstrom of MT FWP will present electro-fishing data from Silver Bow Creek.
• Pat Cunneen of the BNRC will likely present on efforts to remove the Parrot Tailings, Diggins East, and Northside Tailings from the banks of Upper Silver Bow Creek in Butte.

This is not one to be missed!!

The meeting is Monday, December 14, at 6:30 pm in the Business Development Center @ 305 W. Mercury St. in Butte, Montana. 

Restore Our Creek Stroll a success!

Butte citizens concerned about their stream and future 

The "Restore our Creek Stroll" had a great turnout last week.  The citizens of Butte, MT showed up to learn about the threats that the Parrot Tailings plume poses to the newly restored Lower Silver Bow Creek and the Clark Fork River.  Local folks from the DEQ and the MT Natural Resource Damages Program as well as the local groups which are really pushing the movement to get rid of the toxic tailings and reclassify the "Metro Storm Drain" back to what it truly is, Silver Bow Creek, put together a great program with music and transportation.  This new classification for the "Metro Storm Drain" would grant this section of the creek the same protections as all other streams under the Clean Water Act.

There will be another event in the fall.  Please show your support and look to the RBM Chronicles for more information on this event.

Pat Cunneen (BNRC) shows some ideas for a restored Upper Silver Bow Creek

Joe Griffin of Montana DEQ (retired) explains the Parrot Tailings Plume

Silver Bow Creek - Restore Our Creek Stroll

Give me Montana or give me death

Winter sunset on the Deer Lodge Mountains

I was bummed because I could not afford the trip to Helena for the Public Lands Rally yesterday.  I'm still stuck in that in-between time when you transfer jobs and you don't get a paycheck for a month and a half.  Not cool!  In lieu of the rally, I went and enjoyed some public land and reflected about how lucky I was to live in a place with so much of it.  

Upper Clark Fork brown trout

I've been working on my release shots lately.  They are not as easy as you might think but I'm getting it down.  I suppose a polarized filter will help but that's a couple weeks out.

Copper colored bone

The Upper Clark Fork is one of my favorite places to fish in America.  It's also a toxic mess.  I study this stuff so I love to go and take pictures and samples as well as catch tons of huge brown trout.  I'm going to guest lecture a class at MT Tech and I really wanted to get some pictures of some blue colored bones and stream-side slickens to show the class.  Mission accomplished!

Mine waste slicken on the Upper Clark Fork

Mmmmmmmmmm.  Phytotoxic soil.

Most folks don't fish up here.  I assume signs like these may keep the crowds away.  You'd think there'd be no fish. You'd be very wrong.

Upper Clark Fork River

Despite the insanity, the Upper Clark Fork is absolutely gorgeous.  I had as good a day fishing for large brown trout as I did on the Beaverhead but with no dry flies.  That's fine, I love to fish the streamer.

Brown trout release

Looks like the spring weather will continue here in Montana.  Better get your fishing in now because mid-summer flows are going to suck.

"Mine waste repository being built in Blackfoot headwaters"

This Missoulian article explains the movement of mine tailings from the Mike Horse Mine at the headwaters of the Blackfoot River to a repository being built near Lincoln.

I don't think most people know about the Mike Horse Mine, which constantly and eternally pukes acid mine drainage into the headwaters of the beloved Blackfoot River.  There is also a large earthen dam which is made from mine tailings.  Not only is the dam itself undergoing acid rock drainage (ARD), but the dam is susceptible to massive failure.  In the 70's after an intense rainstorm, the tailings dam blew out and a bunch of nasty, metal laden acid water washed downstream causing a MASSIVE fish kill.

By the 90's, when Robert Redford made A River Runs Through It, a movie based on Maclean's novella about a family who grows up fishing the "Big Blackfoot," the quality of the fishery was still recovering and he chose to shoot the entire movie on other streams.  None of the filming took place on the actual Blackfoot!

Anyway, you know I like to show pics of this stuff.  RBM Chronicles is your source for mine waste porn!

One of a series of settling ponds 

Monster earthen dam made out of mine tailings

Opportunity, Montana: Big Copper, Bad Water, and the Burial of an American Landscape - a review

Brad Tyer's debut book Opportunity, Montana: Big Copper, Bad Water, and the Burial of an American Landscape is a must read for anyone involved in stream restoration and conservation - at any level.

The book does a great job chronicling the rise of the Copper Kings, the history of Milltown, Opportunity, Anaconda, and Butte and the brutal treatment and destruction of the Clark Fork River watershed in the name of progress and profit.  Tyer also archives the lead-up and movement to remove Milltown Dam which held back millions of cubic yards of toxic, metal laden sediments.

Interwoven perfectly into the discoveries Tyer makes regarding the Clark Fork Restoration Project, is a touching story regarding the relationship he has had with his late father.  I am a stream restoration guy who has spent most of my professional career working on some aspect of this project.  More than one person Tyer interviews in the book has been my boss at some time.  I have done it all with the backdrop of a shitty relationship with my father.  It was like Tyer wrote this book for me personally!

The heart of the book revolves around the case of environmental injustice Tyer makes for the town of Opportunity, MT.  This tiny "town" is centered in the middle of a sea of toxic mine waste dumps called "tailings ponds."  Google Earth Opportunity, MT to get an idea of the scale of this mess!  When Milltown Dam was removed, the toxic sediment needed to go somewhere and Tyer highlights the decision making process which led to Opporunity paying the price for Missoula's restored river. 

Brad Tyer's writing carries you swiftly through a lot of history and litigation which is no easy task.  I found that his slight sarcasm, use of some great quotes, and a little bit of snark to be the perfect way to hear some of these stories that I was already pretty familiar with.  This book is a treasure trove of history and research and is a great resource to have on the bookshelf after you've read it.

I did find a couple of irrelevant errors in the text.  The book gets some minor technicalities wrong like the location of the mouth of Blacktail Creek and it also says that brown trout are native to MT, which they're certainly not.  These minor details have no effect on the story but did make me a bit nuts when I came across them.

The Opportunity, Montana blog provides many national reviews and stories from brad from the lead-up to the book release last fall.  Check it out for more info on the project, the town, and a bunch of great pics.

Brown trout, brown cows, blue soil, clear water

Mount Powell and the upper Clark Fork

The Clark Fork above the Little Blackfoot is running big and clear, and is fishing well.  It looks like it would be a great float and I didn't even see one boat.

I fished  from below the spillway, all the way down to Galen over two days.  The fishing slows down as you go downstream but you won't see another person for miles.  It was too windy to mess with the ponds.

A green Matuka or JJ Special worked great in the mornings and the large browns were pissed and came out of the shadows.  Nymhing worked best in the afternoon.  A firebead Ray Charles with a Little Green Machine or Rainbow Lightning Bug dropper killed it.  There are some huge rainbows which show up on my line up there every so often.  The common belief is that they've flushed over the spillway from the ponds.  I like to think they swam up there from the lower river.

Copper salts percolating out of soil 

Something important for folks to witness is the toxic, metal laden soils which line the banks and floodplain. The majority of the contamination came in 1908 when a 100 year flood turned the entire Clark Fork Valley into a massive toxic mudslide.  The flood waters flushed decades worth of industrial scale mine waste out of Butte and Anaconda and deposited it over 90 miles of floodplain.  A bunch of the sediment from the flood filled in the brand-spanking-new Milltown Reservoir.  The stumps are dead willows which could not grow in the toxic soil.  We call them "ghost willows."

Copper salts up close

Overly friendly brown cows