Ron Bertram

-- Ron Bertram, EPA remedial project manager for the Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit, will discuss specifics on cleanup alternatives now under consideration for that site.

"There is nothing in the nation that compares to that," said Ron Bertram, an environmental scientist with EPA.
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"Many of the remedies we put in place there are perpetual remedies," said Bertram, with the EPA.

Ron Bertram, the EPA's project manager in Helena, said Monday that federal officials believe removing the tailings would do little at this point to prevent or decrease groundwater contamination.

The state of Montana had wanted the EPA's plan to include removal of the tailings.

‘‘The tailings have sat up there for 100 years or more now, and basically we believe ... in effect that a lot of those contaminates that were in the tailings have already been absorbed into the aquifer itself,'' Bertram told The Associated Press. ‘‘From our point of view, it makes a lot more sense to treat the water rather than remove the tailings.''
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They have worked well, but Bertram said the EPA is concerned about the future cost of maintaining them.

‘‘We have assessed the treatment lagoons and believe they would meet the water- quality criteria, but there is not yet knowledge available on the operation and maintenance of them,'' he told The Montana Standard in Butte.

The agency is taking public comment on its proposal through Feb. 18, and Bertram said officials hope to have a final ‘‘record of decision'' by June.

The plan also calls for the EPA to remove contaminated dust or dirt from attics of area homes, if the dust is entering living areas and posing a health threat.

Bertram said the wide range in the cost estimate of the plan takes into account the possibility that a second treatment plant may have to be built to deal with storm water.

If existing practices, such as seeding and sedimentation ponds, do not result in runoff water meeting standards, then a second treatment plant might be needed, he said.

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EPA Project Manager Ron Bertram said the agency has no objections to having treated water from the Berkeley Pit plant flow through the channel.He's also comfortable with the french drain and thinks that eventually Shropshire will be, too. "We think that during the design phase of this particular construction, all the various future conditions will be addressed," Bertram said, adding that he believes the french drain is likely to be a component of the final cleanup decision.

And EPA Project Manager Ron Bertram has stressed that if the proposed treatment doesn't work, Arco will have to do something else. " They've done jar tests and bench tests and all indicated posi tive results and good prospects that this might work," Bertram said." But until you run the field tests you don't know.If it doesn't work, then the agencies are not going to approve this technology."

"It causes us to consider what the effectiveness of removal would be," said EPA Project Manager Ron Bertram.

The channel runs roughly from Texas Avenue behind the Civic Center to Montana Street where it joins with Blacktail Creek.The buried Parrot tailings and slag dumps sit at the head of the groundwater flow, under and around the county shop buildings and the playfields to the north.

Bertram said the study indicates water in the aquifer beneath the waste moves only about two feet per year to the west.

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At that creeping rate, it would be another 150 years before any groundwater contaminated by the Parrot waste starts coming toward the surface further downstream, Bertram said.

In contrast, groundwater contaminated by smaller waste deposits between Harrison and Kaw avenues surfaces fairly quickly.Removing them as part of the cleanup might achieve the "best bang for the buck," Bertram suggested.
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No matter which alternative is chosen, Bertram said a groundwater collection and treatment system will be required, and its price tag is included in the cost estimates.

Both Sparks and Ron Bertram, EPA's other project manager for Priority Soils, said that even though this cap solution has been granted general approval, they'll still investigate sites where people don't think the caps are appropriate.
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"When we were doing these cleanups, we weren't hearing an outcry that what we were doing was wrong," Bertram said.

He added that whenever EPA orders a cleanup action, it must ensure the action taken would be consistent with a final remedy.

"There's no guarantee of course, but obviously the objective is to try to pick remedies that will be blessed as part of the final decision," Bertram said."Otherwise, PRPs (potentially responsible parties such as Arco) would never agree to follow administrative orders."

The two also take issue with Ray's contention that there's a legal obligation on EPA's part to require redevelopment of sites and they say there's nothing preventing the capped sites from being redeveloped.

"Our obligations are to protect human health and the environment, but to do it within the confines of our laws and regulations," Bertram said.

EPA Project Manager Ron Bertram agrees with Butte-Silver Bow that building on the surface does not pose a threat to human health.Waste removal is being considered for the Priority Soils site because of groundwater far below the surface.

Because the amount of water involved is minimal, EPA is questioning whether removal there makes any sense.Bertram believes the water can be effectively captured and treated further downstream.The flow is 0.3 cubic feet per second.By comparison, Blacktail Creek contains 11 to 12 cfs on average.

Bertram explained that the groundwater doesn't really even flow in that area since the natural flow was cut off by construction of the Berkeley Pit.

"It just sits in there like a lake down in the ground," he said."There's no really driving force to make a lot of discharge out of that aquifer."

Given the situation, Bertram does not believe Butte-Silver Bow is taking that big of a gamble in this case, and he said EPA would try to work with the county so that the park would not have to be disturbed.

"We would try to get what we could out without disturbing something that was brand new," he said.

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Superfund's goal is not, as the EPA's Project Manager Ron Bertram suggests with regard to Priority Soils, to save Arco money.

Jan. 10--After 16 years of dealing with water quality and mine waste issues in Butte, EPA project manager Ron Bertram is moving on to the agency's Denver office.
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Bertram is not ashamed to say the move is entirely motivated by money.With just three years left before retirement, the higher salary will boost his income down the road.

"If I could get the same pay here, I would stay here," he said.

Although based in Helena, Bertram made numerous trips to Butte over the years and conducted many a public meeting.He said he'll truly miss working on the Butte Priority Soils Superfund site where he was responsible for surface and groundwater quality decisions.

"The participation by the people and the local government is real great," he said."There might be differences of opinion, but I would much rather work with a group of people who are interested rather than disinterested."Bertram, 55, and a Kentucky native with degrees in geology and biology, started his career in 1978 as a coal mining inspector with the federal Office of Surface Mining.He joined the Montana EPA office in 1987, and his first Butte assignment came in 1990 with the large scale-removal of the Colorado tailings south of Centennial Avenue.

In recent years, he's overseen the French drain installation under the historic Silver Bow Creek channel and the Atlantic Richfield Co.'s lagoon water treatment system further downstream.

He's also been a staunch defender of EPA's position that the Parrot tailings behind the Civic Center should remain in place.That issue has basically divided the scientific community, and even put EPA and the state Department of Environmental Quality at odds, but Bertram said his departure was not at all prompted by the divisiveness.

"If anything, I enjoyed being engaged by those complicated issues," he said."Those types of things excite me.They give me motivation to get up in the morning and work on these projects."The final Record of Decision on the Priority Soils site is due out this spring, and Bertram said he'll continue to be somewhat involved until its release.He said his position will not be filled right away because of an EPA hiring freeze, but Sara Sparks, program manager on the soils side, will continue as usual.

Sparks said she's really going to miss Bertram, whom she called "a calm, kind man," and his departure will be "a great loss.""Ron has worked very hard on making sure all of the studies were completed in a sound, technical manner," Sparks said.
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Bertram grew up on a Kentucky farm and also plans to retire to one with his wife, Marge.His son, Clint, is hoping to attend medical school at the University of Louisville.

He's already bought the 80-acre farm and intends to restore the pasture lands back to wildlife habitat.

"I'm really looking forward to that," Bertram said.