For years we've been praising the tourism virtues of the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, which at one time was America's Largest Truck-Operated Open Pit Copper Mine, and now is a 500-acre lake of deadly drainage. On June 1, 2006, a snappy new "Interpretive Pavilion" will open on the site of the old Berkeley Pit Viewing Stand, with picnic tables, a snack bar, and restrooms (replacing the current porta-potties.) Luxury comes at a price, however, as the city will charge two dollars to come in and take a peek.

Two bucks may seem like too much to look at toxic waste. But a one dollar admission trial last summer showed that people were willing to pay, and why not? Never underestimate the drawing power of a big hole in the ground, especially one filled with a deadly soup of arsenic, cobalt, and cadmium, set in the middle of a moonscape.

The Berkeley Pit not only looks like a post-Apocalyptic Superfund site, it comes with its own eerie lore as well. For 17 years this wasteland was the home of the mysterious, solitary Auditor the Dog, now dead but memorialized in life-size bronze at the Butte Plaza Mall. The water in the Pit is so toxic that in 1995 it killed over 300 snow geese that mistakenly landed on it. Earthquakes occasionally rumble across the area (a 5.6 struck last summer), but the official "PitWatch" web site emphatically reassures visitors that "the water will NOT be allowed to rise unchecked." This is good, as the Pit is 1,800 feet deep, holds an estimated 36 billion gallons, and if that ever broke free, oh, my, it would make a mess.

Would you pay two dollars for a chance to see that? The city of Butte bets that you would! [05/14/2006]

November 26, 2009