At first glance this picture is full of beauty. The deep blues skies with towering mountains in the background. In the foreground you see what look like rust and sandstone cliffs with a turquoise lake below. In actuality this place is anything but beautiful. It is a horrible reminder of what we as humans have done to our planet. This is the Berkeley pit, in Butte Montana. The Bentley Pit is a former open pit copper mine. The pit is one mile long by half a mile wide and approximately 1,780 feet deep. The Berkeley Pit was once a thriving copper mine appropriately dubbed “The Richest Hill in the World.” Butte was one of the richest communities in the country due to the amount of silver, gold, copper, and other metals extracted from the rock. Open-pit mining came to be in the 1950s when the demand for copper became great. Instead of mining below-ground, open-pit mining is mountain top removal, ultimately allowing underground and rainwater to collect in the pit. When the mining stopped at the Berley Pit, more water collect in the pit, forming a human-made lake. Unfortunately, the water leaches out the metals and minerals in the surrounding rock. Now, the water is as acidic as lemon juice, creating a toxic brew of heavy metal, poisons including arsenic, lead, and zinc. In 1995 a flock of geese landed in the lake but never took off again. A total of 342 geese died in that toxic brew that day. The pit now operates sound devices to scare waterfowl from the lake and has a guard posted to watch over it. At the present time, the water from the pit is being removed, treated, and is being discharged into a nearby creek. #montanamoment #visitmontana #visitmt #berkleypit #butte #buttemontana #turquoisewater #toxic #humanmade #retireearlyandtravel #travelwithus #travelnow #travelmoreoften #environmentaldisaster #geology #openpit #mining #miningtown #uglybeauty #saveourplanet #savetheearth #savetheplanet #savetheenvironment #savethebirds #needtoknow #repairing #lovetheworld #buttetrolley #loveourplanet #coppermine (at Berkeley Pit) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5sTiTLgVOJ/?igshid=13v0grhuj9qv2
