As a rule, feeding time around 7 p.m. is the only time when The Auditor can be expected to appear in all his unsightly glory. Photo courtesy of Shawn McDevitt
Posted on 04/15/2005 12:31:12 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
Within the environmentally hostile confines of the Berkeley Pit lives perhaps Superfund's most amazing paradox. Its name is `` The Auditor.''
Its genus is Canus, but its species -- if indeed there ever were another single dog like it on the planet -- would be nothing other than extraordinarius .
This mysterious mongrel has called the 5,000-acre contaminated expanse of the Berkeley Pit federal Superfund site, combined with Montana Resources' active mine permit area, its home since 1986. Ironically, its only help in surviving has come from the compas sion of miners.
`` He really is a neat dog,'' says MR Operations President Steve Walsh.
The Auditor, who got his name by always showing up `` when you least expected it,'' has served as the open pit copper mine's de facto mascot since its employees befriended the stray nearly 16 years ago. Numerous snap shots of him are proudly placed alongside ore samples and awards plaques in the main office's glass display case.
Workers on the night shift have been dili gently putting out food and water for the dog whenever it has shown up for the majority of its residency at the mine. For the past few years, baby aspirin has been added to his diet, on a veterinarian's recommendation to help an arthritic limp he's developed.
And now, with the recent flurry of activity with the construction of the Horseshoe Bend water treatment plant, the dog has shown up unexpectedly over the past few months, accepting an occasional handout from the workers.
MR employees also erected a shanty dog house at the foot of an enormous waste rock dump where the dog is still fed and sometimes sleeps. Mirroring its owner's mangy appear ance, the shack is bleak and bedded with rags. But it's better than nothing.
As a rule, feeding time around 7 p.m. is the only time The Auditor can be expected to appear in all his unsightly glory. For the rest of his waking hours, he roams the vastness of his toxic home in elusiveness, sometimes miss ing for weeks, even in the dead of winter. In these instances like a drunk disappears on a bender, the small group of people who care for the dog have feared his death more than once. But just as he got his name, he's always shown up.
`` God only knows what he does all day,'' says MR employee Ron Benton. `` You've got to won der why an animal would choose a place so forlorn.''
Forlorn indeed. Not a single blade of grass, nary a tree, shrub or weed can survive on the acidic crust that dominates this animal's yard. Reeking of sulfur and acidity, this is the kind of soil that eats men's boots, let alone the feet of any normal dog.
And the water here is lethal, should you suppose he walks on that.
In 1995, the deceptively calm surface of the Pit infamously claimed the lives of 342 snow geese that made the mistake of a migratory stop.
`` It's unbelievable how it could live in a place that's supposed to be so toxic,'' says local veterinarian Ed Peretti. `` He's one tough dog, I'll tell you that.''
Regardless of whom you talk to who has seen him, the `` one tough dog'' description is the first definition given of The Auditor.
Charlie Palagi, now retired from Montana Resources after serving his entire career in the Butte mines, still buys the food for The Auditor. He fondly tells many a tale about the mutt, all beginning or ending with the declara tion of The Auditor's toughness.
`` He's kind of like our mascot, huh,'' says Palagi, who has several photos of the dog in his retirement albums at home.
Perhaps the dog's most evident trait comes from his origins in the gritty town from which he most obviously wandered. From its heyday as a raucous mining boomtown in the early 1900s to its current economic hardship in the troubled industry's absence, an enigmatic toughness has always been the bread-and-but ter of Butte's sometimes-ugly reputation. Once heralded as The Richest Hill on Earth, its loca tion now serves as the beginning of the nation's largest Superfund area, stretching 120 miles from the Berkeley downstream to the Milltown Dam just east of Missoula.
MR suspended its operations in June 2000 because of high, deregulated energy rates coupled with another drop in the price of cop per. That's when Peretti got a call from a MR employee concerned with The Auditor's future at the mine. The plea was to track down the dog for an examination and to help its caretak ers formulate a long-term survival plan should they close for good.
After driving around for several hours on more than one occa sion, the most Peretti ever got was a glimpse of the dread-locked mutt as it lumbered over a rocky dump too steep for the vet to fol low. In hindsight, it's probably better the dog's life wasn't interfered with, Peretti said.
The Auditor is well over a hundred in dog years now. Belying his ailing and hideous appearance and despite the noxious surroundings he claims as home, the animal has been getting along fine ever since. Much the same, in the absence of a mining economy and under the shadowy stigma of Superfund, Butte has managed to keep hanging on as an undying anomaly to ghost town theory.
The dog's only extremity that can be made out from beneath its filthy, grossly matted coat is its hardened snout. Some years back, one of the miners who cared for the dog was able to shear its bangs in one of the only instances of human contact The Auditor has ever allowed. Beneath his dreaded shroud shined a pair of beautiful eyes.
Butte too, beneath its grizzled appearance from the outside, pos sesses a unique magnificence and embraces a human kindness found in few places. Whether the natives in The Mining City know it, they too have a mascot in the amazing Auditor.
How threatening is the scarlet brand of Superfund upon a com munity already marked on the outside by its hard rock mining past?
Since the area's listing on the EPA's National Priority List in 1983, nearly half a billion dollars that otherwise would not have been spent by the responsible parties has created a substantial environmental sector in the town's economy. Several amenities and needed infrastructure has also resulted from a number of cleanup remedies. Therefore it is difficult to insist it has been entirely bad.
And for what has been bad, the people of this granite-hard town have lived by the unspoken creed of a mortal dog that has survived among the worst, reminding us always to never underestimate the unexpected.
-- Matt Vincent of Butte is a reclamation specialist for ButteSilver Bow County. He also works part-time as a sports reporter for The Montana Standard.
This is an old story! This old guy died several months ago-forgot how many but it's been several.
Interesting. That is one weird looking dog.
Here is the story from Nov 21, 2003:
Legend in his own time, pit dog perishes
By the Standard Staff
A feisty Auditor is seen above in his younger years, before he acquired his trademark coat of dreadlocks.
A Butte legend — The Auditor — died peacefully Wednesday within the confines of his dog house located on Montana Resources property.
The beloved mascot of the Butte mine ate his last meal of Alpo in the morning before he was found later that afternoon in his bed, gone at the ripe old age of about 120 — in dog years.
"Things around here have been pretty sad, really," said Montana Resources Vice President Steve Walsh of the dog's passing. "It was a shock, with all the attention he'd been getting during our suspension (of operations)."
Coincidentally, The Auditor was first seen roaming the mine in 1986, the year Montana Resources started its operations. His passing comes with the reopening of the mine after a three-year suspension.
"Interestingly enough, a lot of us hoped he would last until we started up again," said Charlie Palagi, the Montana Resources employee who has spent his own money over the years to feed the dog.
The mongrel, who got his name from employees "by always showing up when you least expected it," lived almost all his years wandering the barren waste dumps, leach pads and mine roads above the rim of the Berkeley Pit in virtual solitude.
The only time Auditor could be expected was at dinner, when he came to his shanty where mine employees would fill his dishes with food and fresh water.
Human contact was something the elusive mongrel avoided when at all possible. Former employees said you could feed the foxes and coyotes by hand long before The Auditor would accept a handout.
"That's how he lived so long, huh," said Palagi. "No people ever harassed him."
Armored by a coat of dreadlocks, the animal would disappear for weeks, even in the bitter cold of Butte's winter. But as his name stuck, he would always appear just about the time his friends at the mine had given him up for dead.
"Just by his name," said Montana Resources President Frank Gardner when asked to summarize the amazing canine's life in a statement. "Just like an auditor, he did a lot of barking and chasing his own tail."
According to the dog's wishes, Auditor's remains have been cremated. His ashes are planned to be relocated at the Granite Mountain Memorial, overlooking all Butte's historic mining splendor.
Memorials may be made to The Auditor Foundation. (See related story.)
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This link was sent to me by e-mail. I thought it was current and I don't see a date on the article. But looking at the URL, it looks like it may be from Jan. 8, 2003. Hmmm...
Thanks!
That's because it isn't--another multimillion dollar taxpayer ripoff---courtesy of the EPA.
Shame on them all. Not one person willing to take this dog home, clean him up, and care for him.
I agree
I don't think the dog ever let anyone get close enough to him to take him home. He didn't seem to like people.
Ping to a good dog story.
It is strange, the lierals say that all radiation is bad for you.
yet, this dog survives in it.
The indians of America have always used the Radium caves and hot springs for healing.
We have an old mining town near Kingman, called Chloride.
The water there is very high in the radium (sorry the proper name is not coming to me.)
So high that most of the wells are not used, the Az Health Dept, would not allow me to use my well with a count of 100
picos, or what ever they were called, they felt that 25 was the top safety number........but if you asked, they would tell you that in truth they did not have any idea of what the true number to be safe was, so they choose 25.
The adjoing property had a well with 570 units.
The strange thing is that the people who have lived a lifetime in Chloride, don't die, until they start reaching 100.
If you hear of a death in Chloride, the next question is
"when did they move to Chloride".
--besides that, I'll bet a lot of those old-timers worked at the copper mine---
doggy ping?
Yes, it is a safe bet that they worked at Duval, the tailings pile one sees from Hwy 93 to Las Vegas.
Duval is about 5 miles away and there is a large Emerald Isle mine near there. (very old mine, not much tailings, but one giant pit of turquoise water.
The famous Kingman Blue Turquoise comes from the Duval mine area, except, they have now mined the big mountain down to
ground level.
That mountain range is rich in ore, it is called the Cerbat mountains.
Excellent story.
looks like a never groomed poodle
Hey, I'm glad you found this. I was meaning to give you and the husband a Montana ping on this and I didn't.
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