Anaconda-Deer Lodge County, Montana

ANACONDA-DEER LODGE COUNTY , MONTANA “We had a lot of big smokestacks and you can imagine that there’s a lot of arsenic and lead that gets put into the community,” Everett explains. “The cleanup here is in excess of several hundred million dollars. The smelting operator, Atlantic Richfield, were required to come in and basically decontaminate our community, our houses, all of our soils, and revegetate areas that we lost due to the smelting process. The industry provided a lot of jobs here at the time, so that was fantastic, but at the same time, once the smelters close, all those things that were lost need to be brought back to their natural state.” The remediation means that Anaconda’s industrial park, which has sat empty for the past 30 years, can now begin to house businesses to the area, and they are currently adding a new 188-slot RV park. Everett reports, “We’ve got some really cool stuff happening, including a zip line under construction that will be the largest zip line in Montana. It will be operational the first of June.” Anaconda’s rejuvenation is aided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund. The fund allows the EPA to clean up sites that were contaminated due to hazardous waste. After over a century of mining and smelting, the county was left with an area of land contaminated by arsenic, lead, and zinc. Remediation of the land has been underway for a while now, with a goal of being completed by December 2025.