Superfund Sites Yield New Drugs/Tourist Attractions
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Fact or Fiction? Jack W. Dini 1537 Desoto Way Livermore, CA 94550 E-mail: [email protected] Superfund Sites Yield New Drugs/Tourist Attractions In 1993, Travel and Leisure Magazine The 1.5-mile wide, 1,800-foot deep pit, fi ght migraines and cancer.4 ran an article on the Continental Divide. part of the nation’s largest Superfund site, In recent years, more than 40 small It was tough on Butte: “the ugliest spot in has been fi lling for the last 20 years with organisms have been discovered in the lake Montana - despite a spirited historic dis- a poisonous broth laced with heavy metals and these hold much potential for agricul- trict amid the rubble, the overall picture is and arsenic - a legacy of Butte’s copper ture and medicine. It’s even thought that desolate.” It called nearby Anaconda “a sad mining days. When mining offi cials aban- some of these organisms can be employed sack mining town dominated by a smelter doned the pit and stopped the pumps that to reclaim the lake and other similarly con- smokestack.”1 Today things are somewhat kept it dry, they opened the spigots to about taminated waters by neutralizing acidity different for these two sites. 3 million gallons of water per day. Today, and absorbing dissolved metals. the lake is about 850 feet deep and contains Andrea and Don Stierle and their col- Butte, Montana - Lake Berkeley more than 3 billion cubic feet of water.3 leagues have found a strain of the pitho- Edwin Dobb reports, “At one time Butte Lake Berkeley, also known as The myces fungi producing a compound that provided a third of the copper used in the Berkeley Pit, covers almost 700 acres of bonds to a receptor that causes migraines United States - all from a mining district the former open-pit copper mine. It holds and could block headaches, while a strain only four miles square. Eventually open- some 30 billion gallons of highly acidic, of penicillium fungi makes a different pit mining was used and the pit became metal-laden water. It’s the country’s larg- compound that inhibits the growth of the world’s largest truck operated mine, est and most unusual body of contaminated cancer cells.4 In July 2006, the Stierle team along the way displacing some Italian and water, with a pH of 2.6 and metals such as revealed that a novel Berkeley Lake com- Serbo-Croatian neighborhoods. Mining Al, As, Cd, Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn and others.1 pound called berkelic acid from another came to a halt in the early 1980s, as did the Yet as New Scientist reports, “Every cloud new strain of penicillium fungus reduced pumps that had been sucking groundwater has a silver lining.” The contaminated lake the rate of ovarian cancer cell growth by out of the mines for a century. The fl ooding designated hazardous is turning out to be a 50%.5 began.”2 source of novel chemicals that could help How is this possible? Essentially, some organisms actually fl ourish in the presence of acidity and make use of some of the dis- solved metals in the lake. These are called extremophiles (liking extremes), because they not only tolerate, but even thrive in extreme conditions. As mentioned in a previous column,6 extremophiles can toler- ate heat, very cold climates, high pressure, low pH solutions and high pH solutions. Japanese scientist Koki Horikoshi has found a variety of chemically-tolerant extremophiles in the deepest parts of the ocean. Some of them can even degrade hydrocarbons while thriving in water con- taining up to 50% solutes such as toluene, benzene or kerosene.7 A strain of mold has been reported that grows in a 270 g/L copper sulfate solution containing some sulfuric acid as long as some sugar is pres- ent.8 Rich, blue bacteria have been found in potassium ferricyanide solution.9 Why do extremophiles show new Berkeley Pit Lake, circa 1984. The arrow shows the approximate lake level today (User created public antibiotic and anticarcinogenic activi- domain image - GFDL – Wikipedia, 2006). 24 Plating & Surface Finishing • July 2008 dini column 7/08 24 7/7/08, 8:01:22 PM ties? The best guess is that some of them have evolved powerful toxins to attack an enzyme associated with a particular fungal growth phase. Another possibility is that they are particularly adept at stick- ing tightly to surfaces and this is one of the attributes researchers look for in anti- cancer drugs.10 Anaconda, Montana - The Old Works Golf Course Twenty-five miles down the road from Lake Berkeley is the town of Anaconda, Montana, another Superfund site. The Anaconda smelter was once one of the shining stars of the American mining industry employing thousands of people. The facility first began copper smelting operations in 1884 and the smelter rose quickly to national prominence because of its noticeable annual copper produc- tion. However, this all came at a price to Anaconda Smelter Stack (User created public domain image – Wikipedia, 2007). the environment. The land was left gouged with mines and extensively contaminated with heavy metals. The Anaconda smelter Some other sites sands of migratory and sea birds. Built in was demolished after its closure in 1981. The Homestake Gold Mine in South 1974 to drive El Salvador’s biggest hydro- However, the smelter stack, the tallest and Dakota, site of a spill of six to seven tons of electric project, the 33,360-acre Cerron possibly largest free standing masonry cyanide-laced tailings into a creek in 1998, Grande reservoir collects some 3,800 tons structure in the world, remains standing. has been selected as the preferred site for of excrement each year from the sewage The site is now a Montana State park.11 a $500 million Deep Underground Science pipes, as well as factory run-off and traces And speaking of parks and tourism, these and Engineering Laboratory.14 Because of of heavy metals like chromium and lead, days, the town of Anaconda has redefi ned the up to 8000-foot depth of the mine, this the government estimates. So scientists are itself, turning to tourism and recreational would make it the best shielded laboratory puzzling over the fact that some 150,000 pursuits to attract visitors and provide jobs in the world for neutrino studies and a seabirds from more than 130 species have for its citizens. A major attraction is the major advance in sensitivity in the search chosen to make the reservoir their home. Old Works Golf Course built on the site for proton decay. At least 90 of the species are migratory of the copper smelter. Jack Nicklaus, hired An artifi cial lake in El Salvador, brim- birds arriving from as far away as Alaska.15 to design the course, reportedly called the ming with sewage and industrial waste, is Birds do not survive in Lake Berkeley. site the ugliest he had ever seen. One of mystifying scientists by attracting thou- So what’s the difference between the two the most expensive golf course reclamation lakes? Could it be the 3,800 tons/year of projects ever undertaken, the $15 million excrement? P&SF project included capping the entire area with crushed rock, clay, and topsoil. Lakes Continued on page 36. were created to catch and fi lter water, and plastic liners were installed to protect trees, greens and bunkers.12 The course includes capped slag and tailing pipes and some of the landscape’s century old fl ues and smelting ovens. Sand traps are black, a clever use for more than 14,000 cubic yards of inert smelting slag ground to the texture of sand. Massive stone furnace walls line some of the fair- ways. As mentioned in an earlier column,13 the course’s 18th hole is called “Anode,” for the smelter’s fi nal product, the copper anode bar. For the non-golfer, a historic hiking trail highlighting Anaconda’s smelt- ing heritage and giving hikers an insight into copper mining techniques of years past winds its way around the course. Old Works Golf Course built on the site of the copper smelter July 2008 • Plating & Surface Finishing 25 dini column 7/08 25 7/7/08, 8:01:24 PM COATING 2008 online registration Fact or Fiction? Finishers’ Think Tank opens Continued from page 25 Continued from page 26 On-line registration for COATING 2008, the international conference and trade show for the end users of industrial coat- References ing for ease of installation, maintenance ings, is now available on the show website: 1. Florence Williams, “Butte, Montana, seeks and replacement. Because of the depend- www.thecoatingshow.com. Focusing on a new life,” High Country News, 25 (22), able utility of equipment, one or two bath today’s “hot topics,” COATING 2008 November 29, 1993; http://www.hcn.org/ turnovers can be improved to two to four. will brings the latest on green technolo- servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=2556. More solution fi ltration over time improves gies, energy effi ciency, cost reduction and 2. Edwin Dobb, “New Life in a Death clarity, plating quality and overall process quality improvement in both its conference Trap,” Discover, 21 (12), 86 (2000); performance. A superior fi ltration system sessions and through its more than 150 http://discovermagazine.com/2000/dec/ with carbon would use a system rated to exhibitors on the show fl oor. The three-day featnewlife. turnover the solution from two to ten times conference will feature more than 30 ses- 3. Mark Matthews, “Could a Toxic Lake per hour.