Let's Act before it's too late.
Together, we can make the Clark Fork River healthy again at the Smurfit site.
We need to:
• Clean up the dumps.
• Remove the berms.
• Restore the floodplain.
Rigorous sampling of contaminated soil and water is critical to ensuring this vision for cleanup is based on sound science.
Smurfit-Stone mill site
Major flooding is a catastrophe waiting to happen:
A big flood on the Clark Fork River could sweep toxic waste stored at the shuttered Smurfit-Stone pulp mill downstream for hundreds of miles, sickening fish and wildlife, and threatening the health and economies of western Montana’s river towns.
Photo: Chris Boyer/Kestrel Aerial
Given extreme weather trends, it’s a question of when, not if, this will happen.
DANGEROUS NUMBERS:
Information gathered by environmental consultants in 2012 and 2014 indicate that the dumps contain toxic heavy metals and other contaminants, including cadmium, mercury, arsenic, selenium, lead, dioxins and furans.