Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond

USA / Montana / Walkerville /
 lake, copper mine, waste, mining, tailings
also known as - Acid Lake
Fenced lake used to store mine tailings. Some of this lake has since been drained back into the Berkeley Pit.

Hayes, Brian: "Infrastructure: A field Guide to the Industrial Landscape. New York, W.W.Norton, 2005. p.15.

Located north of the Berkeley Pit at the base of Rampart Mountain, the Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond is sometimes colloquially know as “Acid Lake”, which is something of a misnomer, as the pond is actually less acidic than wastewater from elsewhere on the Butte Hill due to differences in geochemistry. Tailings from current Montana Resources mining operations in Butte are discharged here. The pond was created through the construction of a rockfill dam on Yankee Doodle and Silver Bow Creeks, completed in 1972. At 174 meters (about 575 feet, and rising), the dam is the 10th highest in the U.S.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   46°2'55"N   112°30'7"W

Comments

  • This is actually named Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond. Acid Lake is a term kids use to call it.
This article was last modified 13 years ago