“Do we think about mining and extraction in terms of forever? No, we don't. But here you have to. Here you're forced to.”
The Climate Question · Climate & Energy · October 2026
Crawford is describing the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, a disused open-cast copper mine that has filled with billions of gallons of toxic water. The water has to be pumped and treated indefinitely to keep it out of the surrounding water table.
Transcript
…wildlife come back? Will rodents start burrowing in there? Or will the trees eventually dig too deep, reach the toxic soil and die? We don't know yet. They're testing that out. They also have to do cleanups of attics because there's arsenic dust from the smelting throughout old buildings. That's
got into the house. It's going into the water. And it's in the attics and the roof. So
you've got to go in and clean that up. And there's very high rates of bladder cancer in Butte, which is often the result of exposure to arsenic. So there's that to deal with, but still people don't leave. You have this gigantic pit filling with water that you have to pump forever. It so struck me. When someone said this, it was one of the miners, actually, one of the copper miners said, you've got to pump that forever. And, you know, as I said to him, I thought, forever is a long time. And he's like, yeah, it sure is a long time. And I think that idea of forever, it's how I kind of end the book, is that concept of forever. Do we think in terms of forever? Do we think about the planet in terms of forever? No, we don't. Do we think about mining and extraction in terms of river? No, we don't. But here you have to. Here you're forced to. And I think that's so fascinating. And so many people, young people who…
James Crawford, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thanks, James.
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