Slate's Bizbox
history lesson: The history behind current events.

Watershed MomentThe death of a Montana dam.

By Caitlin DeSilvey
Posted Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 7:13 AM ET

Click here to read a slide show on the passing of Milltown.On March 28 in Milltown, Mont., the waters of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers breached a coffer dam to flow freely through their confluence for the first time in a century. The moment came at the midpoint of a $100 million Superfund cleanup of contaminated sediments at the Milltown Reservoir—perhaps the most ambitious environmental remediation project ever attempted in the country. When the cleanup began in 2006, a Slate slide show looked at the history of the dam and the memories attached to the landscape it created.

Click here to read a follow-up slide-show essay on the passing of Milltown.

.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Caitlin DeSilvey's work on Milltown is supported by a fellowship from Humanities Montana. She is a lecturer in cultural geography at the University of Exeter in Cornwall, England.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
A Grand Tour
David Broder | While the stars align for Obama, McCain is looking like the odd-man-out on foreign policy.
Annette Heuser: A Honeymoon
PLUS » Achenblog: The New Capitalism Socialism