Trout Return to Once-Contaminated Creek

BUTTE, Mont. - Silver Bow Creek, contaminated for more than a century by tailings and other mine waste, appears to be responding to environmental cleanup.

Recently, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks' employees found populations of live trout in the creek, once considered a dead stream.

The inventory revealed a larger presence of trout - including westslope cutthroat - than has been in Silver Bow Creek for about 120 years, Joel Chavez, who is managing the creek restoration project for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

"We have a long way to go before we have a viable trout population, but the presence of these fish is evidence that the cleanup effort is showing positive results," he said in a news release.

FWP, on behalf of the DEQ and the Department of Justice Natural Resource Damage Program, used electrofishing to survey fish populations along portions of the creek during the inventory. Officials found 54 brook trout and four westslope cutthroat trout. All fish caught during the study recovered and were returned to the stream, Chavez said in the release.

The findings were applauded by area residents, environmental officials and anglers such as Tony Schoonen, who has lived near the creek since 1970.

"It's been dead ever since we've lived here," he said of the creek. "I think it's fantastic. It's nice to see fish back again and sooner or later, as time goes on and vegetation takes over, that creek will get more purified and boy, that will be great."

The fact that a westslope cutthroat was found is especially promising, said Schoonen, a longtime fishing guide in southwest Montana.

"They are a more sensitive species than the others," he said. "That is a good indication that eventually the whole stream may come back."

Schoonen said he's also seen geese, ducks, beavers, muskrats and a wide variety of birds return to reclaimed areas of the creek in recent years.

The recent findings mark the greatest improvement in terms of numbers of fish and diversity of species since surveys began five years ago, said Don Skaar, FWP fish management bureau chief.

"There are abundant fish upstream of Butte in Father Sheehan Park and the habitat is getting better in Silver Bow Creek, so we are hopeful about the future of the stream," he said.

In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency listed the Silver Bow Creek/Butte area as one of the multiple Superfund sites in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. DEQ, as the lead agency, and EPA are coordinating the cleanup of the creek with the resource damages program.

The cleanup project is expected to be complete in 2011.

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Information from: The Montana Standard, http://www.mtstandard.com

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