Word: lakes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...more than a decade, Butte has been perversely proud of its strange monument. Townsfolk, in fact, celebrate the acid lake, which, deceptively green and picturesque, sparkles on postcards. The Chamber of Commerce runs a trolley to the viewing stand and gift shop that it operates high over the waters. "Biggest tourist draw in southwest Montana," a chamber official crows. But even as visitors stream in, authorities must take elaborate steps to scare away waterfowl with loudspeakers, firecrackers and a boat. Such precautions weren't in place three years ago, when migrating Canadian snow geese had the misfortune to touch down...
...below the rim of the pit, threatening one day to spill into an underground aquifer and send a tide of contaminants seeping into neighborhoods and creeks across the Summit Valley. Some people are concerned about a shroud of morning mist and fog--a product of the lake--that envelops parts of the town. "All that moisture has to be carrying bad things in it," says worried restaurateur Buck Loomis...
...authorities wrestle with how best to remove and treat the poisons before they reach the danger level, some residents are promoting a new twist on their old livelihood: mining the Berkeley lake. There is growing talk by both local residents and officialdom (scientists and bureaucrats) of seeking to extract perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of zinc, copper, magnesium and other minerals that lie dissolved in the waters. The alternative--a plan to clean the waters with a standard lime-precipitation technique--has its own problems: critics warn that it could leave the community in the shadow...
ARCO and Montana Resources, the pit's custodians, like the idea of mining the fetid lake but say it is not yet economically feasible. A local environmental firm, MSE Technology Applications, is testing everything from microbes and chemicals to membrane strainers to remove the ores but says a workable process could be years off. That's too long to wait, warns Fritz Daily, a former Montana legislator who is concerned about an earthquake fault less than a mile from the pit. "If the water ever discharges, it could destroy the entire valley," he says. A growing number of others, Montana...
...have improved 183%. In February it became the first syndicated talk show to beat Oprah since that show became No. 1 in 1987. What makes this so remarkable is that Oprah had been routing the competition handily for so many years. In March 1995, for example, when the Ricki Lake show peaked, it had a Nielsen rating of 6.1; at the same time Oprah's rating was 8.8. Now both Springer and Oprah have ratings...