Soda Butte Creek
August 17-21, 1999
- Site Description and History
- Study Design & Sequence of Events
- Photo Gallery
- Results & Acknowledgments
Site Description and History
Soda Butte Creek originates by Henderson Mountain near Cooke City, Montana and flows approximately 8 kilometers into the northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Soda Butte Creek joins the Lamar River inside the park (fig. 1).
Soda Butte Creek is the only stream flowing into YNP that has been significantly impacted by mining activities. The basin upstream of the park boundary has been the site of numerous mining operations in the past. To further complicate the issue, differentiating between natural and human- induced sources of metals is extremely difficult as the geologic units in the watershed are highly mineralized.
Potential metal sources within the basin include mine tailings at the McLaren mill site and the associated tailings dam (fig. 2). Ore from the McLaren Mine, a gold, silver, and copper mine active from 1933 to 1953, was processed at a mill located next to Soda Butte Creek, four miles upstream from the Park boundary. Gold, silver, and copper were leached out with cyanide. During the period the mill was operational, approximately 150,000 cubic yards of tailings were deposited on the valley floor of Soda Butte Creek, which originally meandered through the area currently overlain by the tailings. Tailings accumulated during the mine's operation were placed directly instream covering an oxbow of Soda Butte Creek.
In June 1950 heavy rainstorms and flash flooding in the upper Soda Butte Creek basin caused the McLaren tailings impoundment to break, spilling a large amount of the tailings into Soda Butte Creek. In 1969 the creek was rerouted around the north edge of the impoundment. The tailings were leveled, graded, covered with a 0.5-1.5 meter thickness of alluvial sand and gravel, and seeded with grass. In 1989 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Kennecott installed a buttress berm to reinforce the tailings dam and removed some of the tailings below the dam. Despite these efforts, the banks and bed of Soda Butte Creek around and downstream from the tailings are continuously stained by ground and surface water seeps and drains. The National Park Service (NPS) has expressed concern that the runoff and ground water at the mill site and tailings pile still appear to be continuing sources of metals entering Soda Butte Creek.
(text and figures courtesy of Greg Boughton)
Study Design & Sequence of Events Study Design
The objective of the study was to determine the principal metal sources in the Soda Butte Creek basin upstream of Yellowstone National Park. Of particular interest was the relative loading of metals from the McLaren mill site and tailings dam. Metal loads contributed by tributaries of Soda Butte Creek were also determined.
Sequence of Events
August 17-18 Stream measurement and reconnaissance 19 Tracer injection begins at 1400 hours 20 Water quality sampling (Synoptic sampling); Tracer injection ends 21 Final sampling of tracer departure; cleanup
Photo Gallery
Site ID Distance Description
242 str 242 Transport site #1, above McLaren tailings 455 str 455 455 str(b) 455 455 str(c) 455 455 str(d) 455 465 rbi 465 577 +++ ~585 Downstream from 577 left bank inflow 605 --- Upstream from ~605 m 629 lbi 629 Pit under stump 630 rbi 630 653 lbi 653 Ponded water 693 lbi 693 720 lbi 720 Sampling location 720 lbi(b) 720 Up from sampling location - 2 sources 720 lbi(c) 720 Further up - right source 720 lbi(d) 720 Further up - right source, at toe of dump 835 rbi 835 Miller Creek 835 con 835 Confluence of Miller Creek (L) and Soda Butte (R) 980 rbi 980 1047 rbi 1047 1489 str 1689 Transport site #2, above Republic Street culvert 1669 con ~1869 Confluence of Soda Butte (L) and Republic Creek (R) 2382 rbi 2582 2602 lbi 2802 2695 rbi 2895 3014 lbi 3214 3433 rbi 3633 Sheep Creek 3920 rbi 4120 4696 rbi 4896 "Shack" with a satellite 4981 lbi 5181 5378 lbi 5578 5720 str 5920 Transport site #3 8077 lbi 8277 8197 rbi 8397 8311 str 8511 Transport site #4 at YNP boundary 8311 str(b) 8511 Transport site #4 at YNP boundary Key
str - stream site rbi - right bank inflow lbi - left bank inflow con - confluence +++ - downstream from designated site --- - upstream from designated site
File Description
misc Soda Butte Creek misc2 Soda Butte Country Club
Results & Acknowledgments Results
Study findings are reported in:
Boughton, G.K., 2001, Metal loading in Soda Butte Creek upstream of Yellowstone National Park, Montana and Wyoming: A retrospective analysis of previous research; and quantification of metal loading, August 1999: U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 01-4170, 68 p.
Acknowledgments
The Soda Butte Creek synoptic was done in cooperation with the Yellowstone River Basin NAWQA (USGS) and the National Park Service. Field assistance was provided by Greg Boughton, Myron Brooks, Melanie Clark, Ben Kimball, Glenn Laidlaw, Joe Pohl, Katie Randall, and members of the research team.
