The toxic pit with a $3 admission fee 

I couldn't find a way to mention this in the video but: next door to the pit, there's still an active copper mine! Of course, they're being a bit more careful with the environment there.

"So what's your job?" "I am a professonial scarecrow for a toxic pit"

“What do you do for a living?” “I don’t shoot birds.”

Surprisingly I'd imagine a 5.56mm high velocity round hitting the water nearby where I was swimming would motivate me to leave too.

"Caution: Cannon on Timer" is a sign you don't see every day.

So what do you do for a living? "I almost shoot birds."

Scaring birds away by shooting a lake with high-powered rifles is the most American form of wildlife conservation

There were several studies done that showed charging admission increased the number of visitors and as well as improving the behavior of those visitors vs a open to all or "honor" system. Weird people will pay to behave but if it's free they tend o be more destructive. Humans are strange.

4:30 to be clear... You don't need admission to see the pit. The fee is for the little area that overlooks the pit with little facts and such there. You can absolutely see the pit for free.

Very bold of him to say “Tourists will go anywhere” with all those tourists around

"The Mile wide, incredibly toxic pit" - but enough about Twitter.

I live in Idaho, and during a school trip down to Yellowstone we stopped here. It's quite the experience hearing the little jolly voiceover from the speakers talking happily about this disgusting pit while you stand there in horror.

"The go-to is high-powered rifles" Of course it is.

"What d'you do with this gun?" "Protecting birds" "... by shooting toward hunters?" "By shooting toward birds"

"Sir, why do you need TWO semi-automatic rifles at a bird sanctuary?" "For when you absolutely, positively have to scare off 30-50 geese in 3-5 minutes."

I have family up in Montana and have driven past here several times and thought it was just water. Now I know that it’s where Dasani is sourced

Tom: "And the $3 dollar admission? That's capitalism." Me (an American): "Naw, that's a deal right there!"

As an American: I must marvel that our solution to protecting birds is guns.

Person 1: This pool is toxic, nobody will ever come here. Person 2: Charge people $3 to go to it, the illusion of an affordable attraction entices people who otherwise wouldn’t care.

For those interested, a pH of 2 is essentially lemon juice. it would be irritating quickly if you were swimming in it and it can definitely dissolve calcium carbonate. but that is not instant skin-melting stuff either.

Dude imagine going to university for 5 years and then ending up just making sure birds don't land on a lake.

So, where do I apply for the "Shooting high powered rifles close to birds for their own good" job?

What? Only $3!? I paid $60 to see a toxic pit and it's called Rainbow Six: Siege!

I know I'm nearly two years two late, but have lived in a village outside Butte for most my life, my high school chem teacher used to be the head chemist at the berkeley pit, and my grandfather used to be a miner ther.; I just think its really neat that you stopped by our weird town, and the horrible historical scar in it we created, so thanks for having it on your show. Also, you should research the anaconda smelting tower, its one of the worlds largest freestanding stonemasonry structures and it is in the next town over; could be an interesting sight if you ever visit the area again.

So you're telling me there's thousands of miles of abandoned mine shafts at least partially flooded with acid and bird corpses? That's both a truly metal idea for a video game level and my ideal summer home.

"Tourist will go anywhere interesting" so accurate

Thanks Tom. I just visited this place… all the way from Ontario, Canada Edit: It’s now 5 bucks to get in.

“A few hardy bugs” I just imagine 3 bugs walking around the surface treating it as it’s own kingdom

We have had an alkaline lake. We have had an acidic lake. So tom, when shall you visit a perfectly neutral lake?

Tom Scott, 2015: "Here's a blue lake that's highly alkaline" Tom Scott, 2019: "Here's a blue lake that's highly acidic"

(looks at a pit of toxic waste) "Now THAT'S a tourist attraction!"

tom has 2 videos on giant lakes in pits that used to be mines, one incredibly acidic, and one incredibly basic. the basic one has a few idiots per year who figure out why swimming there is a bad idea, the acid one has an admission fee.

I’m American and honestly when you said it was $3 I was shocked at how cheap it was. Fully expected $12-$21 and was still ready to go check it out.

i just wanna dip a copper and nickel plate in it and make the biggest 1volt battery ever

Some rich people owned a mining company and made tons of money. Now the public budget has to pay for a mile wide toxic pit not to get out of control...

For real many of Tom's videos is humans fixing the long term consequences of their mistakes damn

Thank you for bringing awareness to this! I've called Montana home for my whole life and it still astounds me that Butte residents are proud of this thing. My father worked for 30 years trying to clean up mining waste across the state and it is an uphill battle. People often refuse to believe how bad these contaminants actually are and so actions that need to be taken are not. Awareness and education is key.

Can't believe they lowered the price for E3 tickets!

$3 admission fee is an excellent way to help maintain the barriers that need to be around anything that toxic.

fun fact: it is also the only superfund toxic cleanup site that makes a profit from selling the stuff they are cleaning out of the water. - this information courtesy of the local mining museum.

"we are over 99% effective" 1% of the birds get shot by accident

Well at least it's not a load of arsenic dust that could kill everyone on the planet, this time

Mt Morgan, Queensland, Australia, has a pit much like this one. It is a former open pit gold mine. As the mine aged, gold processing waste began to be pumped into the pit. Nowadays the pit (a mile deep) is full of toxic waste that has at times leaked into the nearby river making it uninhabitable for wildlife. And yes, birds die if they land on or attempt to drink the water.

It's really commendable how much effort they put into saving wildlife.

"Caution: Cannon on Timer" Custom-sign-maker: "Eh?"

Went to high school in Bozeman and every time we played Butte in football we would chant “dirty water!” Across the field to them on account of the disgusting Berkeley Pit. This tradition has existed since the beginning of time as far as I know

i grew up in an iron mining town in western australia! the major open mine in the area is still active and pumping out water faster than it can fill up but i remember being taught that once abandoned and filled with water it would become toxic. really cool to learn about something very similar

Hopefully the $3 fee helps pay for the cleanup of the area and doesnt just go into someones pocket

I love that they have a bird spotting book in the little shack... 'Ooh look, that's a rare one... PREPARE THE METHANE CANNONS. SOMEBODY GET MY M4A1!'

My mom was raised in Butte. That mine was part of our family. So cool to see you did a bit on to it.

my senior paper advisor in college wrote an entire book on this pit and on bute in general! very cool to see this

Best job ever. "what do you do for a living?" "I shoot at birds =D" "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" "To make sure they don't die 👍"

"The pit's water contains so much metal that at one point one of its owners, Montana Resources, mined copper directly from the water."

This is the pinnacle of humanity, taking pictures of the environment you messed up and the waste that you created

This gives of major "Welcome to Night Vale"-vibes

Not as toxic as RU-vid's comments sections

I love that they care about the birds enough to have a watch and set up 24/7 scare methods

sitting around admiring birds and shoot at the lake once in a while, the greatest job ever

*Watcher sees a bird land & Whoops out the Assault Rifle* *Moments Later a whole migration lands* Watcher: “Code Red calling In Air Strike”

"We are actually 99% effective" 1% of birds: Why do I hear boss music

The pit's water contains so much metal, you can almost hear it perform a kickass guitar solo!

Worker: we scare the birds off with cannons and high power rifles. Birds: LMAO YOUR AIM IS DOG

Thank you Tom Scott. Very good reporting.

I went to this mine several times when it was operating, there was a platform where you could pay a small fee and look down into the pit while they were mining . Possibly the same platform that you now pay to look over the polluted mess. The massive trucks that would move the ore looked smaller than a match box toy when they were at the bottom, and when I stood next to one of the trucks the top of my head did not even reach the axel. Hopefully you also took the opportunity to visit the Anaconda smelter stack while you were there. The pit and the stack histories go hand in hand and both are impressive. The drop in acidity that the worker mentioned from 2.2 Ph to 4.1 Ph was caused by an experiment in trying to recover copper from the water. As you mentioned the iron pyrite forms sulfuric acid which reacts with copper ore to form water soluble copper sulfate. They would pump out water from the pit into large holding tanks and add a pile of iron scrap metal. The iron would replace the copper and after draining the tank they could pick up copper nuggets deposited in the process. The solution of now iron sulfate was just pumped back into pit where it reacted with the polluted water and precipitated to the bottom of the pit in various forms of iron minerals. This process removed a large amount of sulfate ions from the pit water thus lowering the acidity, they have concerns that some types of water treatments to lower the acidity could react with the precipitate and inadvertently cause the water to become more acidic.

"Okay guys, so we oofed up the environment. Guess we have to clean it up now." "How about charging $3 for people who want to see it?"

My grandparents lived there, and I showed them this video, and they thought it was super awesome and, “neat!”

How fascinating and how interesting the Berkeley Pit!

"Nothing can survive there except a few hardy bugs", There's always a few hardy bugs!

"Oh no, there's bird in the pit that could kill them" "Quick, shoot at them"

Thanks for your work!

Thank you @Tom Scott

Dr Stone warned us, Tom pointed to us

1:11 "That's a propane cannon!" Hank Hill:

"we try to save bird's lives" *uses flamethrowers and snipers*

The gift that keeps on giving

I love that they actually go to the effort of protecting the birds.

"What should we use to scare them off?" *grabs rifle* "There's only one option."

Glad you visited my home state once. I've been by that pit quite a few times.

I grew up here, super random to see one of the rare uploads of yours I missed from last year be of my hometown

A goose: attempts to land on an acid lake Workers: So anyway, I started blasting

"A toxic pit with a $3 Admission fee" sounds like my ex tbh

I've lived only a half hour from here my whole life and now I'm going to college in Butte. How did I never know that Tom did a video on the pit??

i live in butte and i’ve been watching you and magicaly come across this

“There were whole neighborhoods destroyed” is absolutely true. My grandpa’s home suburb of Meaderville is 100% pit now

Same pH as that of a soft drink I'll call it _Pep-sea_

I've actually been to Butte and stayed in a motel there on a road trip, I had no idea about the toxic pool but the town was absolutely lovely

For all of those of you who aren’t aquatinted with chemistry. The lower the PH the more Acidic it is, the higher the more basic it is. The normal PH scala goes from 0 up to 14. Water is a 7, in other words it’s neutral. There are some acids out there that are so acidic that they don’t even fit on the PH scala. And due to the way of the scala being logarithmic (when you want to calculate a strong/ weak base with PKS) it cannot be negative, as such there is an entirely different system for these extreme acids

I would stay on the good side of those bird watchers. Seems to me they have a perfect means to dispose of a body.

I visited that place in '08 or '09 and the change in depth looks terrifying. It looks like a proper lake in this video, I remember it as a blighted puddle by comparison.

As a Montanan, there’s nothing more fun then going for a road trip by butte and just looking to your left and there’s about a 100 foot drop off with a toxic pit at the bottom

You can use the RU-vid comment section for free don't need to pay $3

This is my hometown.!! Also F.Y.I. about two holes open up per year as parts of those 10,000 miles of tunnels collapse in uptown Butte. I hope you enjoyed Butte!! This video made my day! Thank you!

Thanks for the information 🙂

I’ve been there. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Butte is also home to the shortest Interstate highway in America. I-115, 1.3 miles. Starting in Butte, MT, ending in Butte, MT

Anyone know of any giant spoil heaps of alkali salts that need dumping?

I saw this title and just knew it was Butte, Montana. My stepdad visited a friend there once and told me all about the toxic acid pit

Being a Montana resident, I'm actually intrigued by Butte's history and how they treat Berkeley Pit.

1:08 "Why that's one of the eight uses of propane I haven't tried yet" -Hank Hill

so this where Dr.Stone get his sulfuric acid.