Butte mine officials: Snow geese deaths number into the thousands

BUTTE - Several thousand migrating snow geese perished in the toxic Berkeley Pit water where they landed last week, mine officials said Tuesday.

Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield Company officials say they are not yet ready to release a hard number because federal and state agencies have to verify numbers collected. But MR manager of environmental affairs Mark Thompson said the mining company expects the final number to be several times greater than the 1995 snow goose die-off incident.

The mine estimates that as many as 10,000 snow geese landed on the pit’s contaminated water the night of November 28. Thompson said previously that the pit’s 700-acre lake was “white with birds.”

Since then, MR and ARCO – the responsible parties for the Berkeley Pit Superfund site – worked around the clock to get the birds to leave and to keep any additional birds from landing, say federal officials.

http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/butte-mine-officials-snow-geese-deaths-number-into-the-thousands/article_9a1aada1-c140-543e-b823-c778ae514ad7.html