The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine in the western United States, located in Butte, Montana. It is one mile (1.6 km) long by one-half mile (800 m) wide, with an approximate maximum depth of 1,780 feet (540 m).

Mar 6, 2023 · PitWatch educates the public on the science, history, and safety measures of the Berkeley Pit in Butte, MT. Learn more about PitWatch's mission here!

We created an interactive timeline to educate viewers on the Berkeley Pit's history that stretches from 1955 to 1982. Learn about Berkeley Pit history here.

The Berkeley Mine Pit is now the most expensive site on the EPA’s superfund list. Underground mining operations date back to the 1870s in Butte. By 1955, however, Anaconda decided that it would be more profitable and safer for miners to dig straight down to copper veins instead of tunneling to them.

Jan 28, 2021 · Once home to a bustling open-pit mining operation, Berkeley Pit is now a nearly 1,800-foot deep crater filled with various heavy metals and “unique microscopic lifeforms.” The more than 40 billion liquid gallons in this pit include acidic water, copper, iron, arsenic, zinc, sulfuric acid and more.

The Berkeley Pit, was Butte's first large truck-operated open-pit copper mine until mining ceased in 1982. By 1980 nearly 1.5 billion tons of material had been removed from the Pit, including more than 290 million tons of copper ore.

Feb 22, 2010 · The Berkeley Pit is a former open-pit copper mine in Butte, Montana and now one of the only places in the world where you can pay to see toxic waste. The sheer scale of the site is...

May 28, 2024 · The Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana is a former open-pit copper mine that has transitioned from an engine of economic prosperity to a site of environmental and humanitarian concern due to its transformation into a toxic lake following the closure of mining operations.

Using oral history interviews and archival finds, The City That Ate Itself explores the lived experience of open-pit copper mining at Butte’s infamous Berkeley Pit. Because an open-pit mine has to expand outward in order for workers to extract ore, its effects dramatically changed the lives of workers and residents.

In 1955, mining in Butte saw the light, literally. Excavation on what would become the Berkeley Pit, named from one of several nearby historic underground mines that the Pit would later swallow, began that year in a transition from underground to open pit mining.