Sandy Stash, ARCO

Photo Credit: Montana Standard

Oral History Transcript of Sandy Stash

Interviewers: Aubrey Jaap & Clark Grant
Interview Date: April 9th, 2021
Location: Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives
Transcribed: November 2022 by Adrian Kien

[00:00:01]

Jaap: All right. It is April 9th, 2021. We're here with Sandy Stash. Sandy, I would first like you to start off and give me a little bit of your background. Where are you from? You know, where you're born, and let's just kind of start and get that background.

Stash: Sure, sure. You know, actually, I was born - I will say in the East Coast equivalent of Butte actually. My grandparents were Eastern European immigrants, and it was to the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania area. And both my granddads were coal miners actually. And I, sadly, lost my mom just a couple of months ago, but I thought about it. I was driving into town. We were up in Dublin Gulch one time visiting one of my staff members. And my mom said, "Stop the car." And she was like, "This is just like where I grew up." So anyway, I grew up in upstate New York. And then went to college in Colorado at the Colorado School of Mines. And that was a choice to live in the mountains. So yeah, so that's my early years.

Jaap: Yeah. Was your choice to go to Colorado based off of kind of your family's background in mining? Did that have any impact?

Stash: A little bit. A lot of it was the attractions to the mountains and I actually had a scholarship at Mines and I had one here at Tech and Mines made me a better deal. Or I would've been an Oredigger.

Jaap: Yeah. So after the school mines, tell me what you did after that.

Stash: Yeah, actually majored in petroleum engineering and I don't know, not out of any particular reason other than I had a summer job up in Cutbank, Montana. Again, a choice to come to Montana and so the guys driving around in the nice cars rather than welding and handling wrenches, which I think was my job that summer. And I thought, "Yeah, I think I want to do what that guy's doing." So, basically went to Mines and then had a fairly typical of the time early career as a petroleum engineer. I spent a short while up in Alaska and that was really when the North Slope was kind of a brand new oil field. And then moved to Denver and kind of again worked the Rocky Mountain portfolio. And it's a pretty simple deal. You'd go out and survey a location and then bring in a contract drilling rig and try to find oil. And quite a lot of that again was in Montana. And some of that was, and, of course, it's predated my sort of Anaconda Company history.

But because Anaconda had such a presence in Montana, ARCO had just become the purchaser of the Anaconda Company. So we had quite a lot of acreage in Montana. I guess in the simple calculation in the 1980s, well, if there might be copper there, there might be oil there too.

So you know, actually, I was involved pretty much across the state in places. I didn't find a lot of oil by the way, but up in the northeastern part of the state. And then you know, places as flung as Heart Butte, Crow Agency, Lame Deer, even near Red Lodge.  So I did that type of work for, oh gosh, upwards of about eight years or so. And then frankly had, and I always, I guess I should say in the early years, a lot of the wells I was involved in were areas that had environmental sensitivities, social sensitivities. A lot of it was on a number of the reservations in Montana, New Mexico. And so developed a little bit of a reputation as an engineer that kind of had a big bit of sense about community and environment issues, et cetera.

[00:03:48]

And so the company was aware of me and basically was recruited to Butte/Anaconda sort of in the early days of Superfund. And in early days, maybe a little bit of a misnomer.  I think the site had declared a Superfund site in the early to mid ‘80s. I've kind of lost track of the history and this was the late eighties, but it was really the point at time, which I think it, it was becoming very real to the company, to the community, to the state, to the national government that work needed to be done. So I can still remember, because it was the night of my 30th birthday and I stayed down, I forget what it was called at the time, the hotel out by the airport. And I sort of celebrated my 30th birthday in the hotel room by myself and did a little driving around town and I don't know, for some reason the Colorado Tailings stick out in my mind because, of course, that was such a prominent feature. I'll be polite. And I remember thinking that this may have something to do with what I'll do here if I decide to accept the job. And so I did. Immediately, I was offered it. And actually, started, because it was a very small staff and a guy named Bill Williams actually was sort of the GM at the time, General manager at the time. And then really it was just a couple years after that that they decided, Bill decided to leave the company and I was stepped up to the general manager position. I forget what different titles through time, but basically the one on point for ARCO in Montana, for all of the old Anaconda facilities. That was probably about 1992.

Jaap: So I find you fascinating because, so you're 30 and you have quite a prominent role in - I'm sure you've asked this a million times - but in an oil company that, I would imagine, is predominantly done by men? What was that like?

Stash: Yeah. You know, it's funny because I have to admit, at the time, I didn't think anything of it, at all. And I now, and I do as my hobby now, do quite a bit of mentoring of young people, young engineers, whatever. And often times tell people that story that, you know, hey, don't be afraid of this big job because I was 30 years old and took on what really amounted to a very, very large job. And I think the truth of the matter was and we'll talk more about this because a little bit of it is kind of the history of, I think how the company saw this. And you know, I think the company knew they had a problem.  I don't think there were a lot of young executives clamoring to go run the Anaconda issues, the Anaconda Company, whatever it was called at the time.

[00:06:50]

And so I think there was sort of a lack of knowledge about the enormity of the issue.  And I also think, and it was funny, we used to joke because one of the acronyms for Superfund is SARA, and don't ask me what that is, Superfund, whatever. But we used to joke that it stood for Shock, Anger, Rejection, Acceptance. And I will say I got here at shock and then I lived through a short phase of anger and I can laugh about it now a little bit, but the sort of - I think a true belief in ARCO, that in selling the mine to the Washington Corporation that that liability transferred to Washington. And I will not, I don't mean to speak for the Washington Corporation, but I'm sure they had the same feeling toward ARCO.  You know, so it's funny now because of course everything was settled, but sort of a 'this can't be true and it certainly can't be us' sort of attitude coupled with the very unusual aspects of the CERCLA of Superfund law, which is that really, you don't have to own something to be liable for having to fix it. And in  the early days, and I don't mean just in Butte, it was early days in the United States on the law. So I think that was the phase.

And ARCO wasn't unique in it, but we'll just take this to court, you know. So that was a very short phase actually. And I like to say that it was sort of a little victory I had over the general counsel at the time of the company, which was, No, this, you know, get over your anger. You know, this is real. This is real. And then I will say the rejection phase was probably a little silliness. You know, again, we'll take them to court and what I think I'm most proud of and by the way, this is not a singular statement because I think it's true of my colleagues at EPA and the State and the city and everything else was how quickly we got to acceptance.

And again, this is the sort of wisdom you gain with hindsight because it's always easier looking back. But even at 32, or whatever I was at the time, but when we got ourselves to the acceptance phase was that this was not, this was an environmental issue, but it was also a huge socioeconomic issue.

And, by the way, and I'll talk more about that later. That's a theme that has carried me through my professional life and continues to serve me today. You know, what I'm doing currently. And it was almost the, I don't know, maybe a bit of a nuanced view that we weren't going to fix the environmental problem with an environmental solution when it was truly a socioeconomic, environmental, a much, much bigger issue with a backdrop of five generations of people that settled here to work in a place that no longer had the presence it had at one time. So I think fairly quickly, you know, and again, I guess mainly because the people who I was working for in Los Angeles actually really didn't know what we were doing other than just trying to keep ourselves out of the front page of the paper and out of court and everything else.

I was really given the latitude to approach the problem that way. If that makes sense. And I mean just a couple of things. We had a whole bunch of out of state consultants and contractors in here doing some of the early work. We had outside law firms. And I can remember the day over in our office in Anaconda at the time, a gentleman who will go unnamed, but one of the partners with one of the prominent environmental consulting firms basically giving me direction. And I said, "You consultant; me client; you're fired." And anyway, he went to New York and went on and had a brilliant career. But that again was a little bit of a tipping point that surely we mined Montana, we should be able to un-mine Montana with local companies. This, by the way, now is a big global issue around being sure when extractive companies come into local jurisdictions that there is mutual benefit or there's something in it for the community. And I use that just by one example, but a real concerted effort to be sure that there was some local economic benefit that went with what it was clearly going to be tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars a year being spent to fix everything that needed to be fixed.

And then I think secondly, and this was probably a little bit after that, a push too on the social side. And that was, for God's sake, are we really going to spend this much money to dig up red dirt and yellow dirt and cover dirt and whatever, and not have any aspect of social benefit and economic benefit from the cleanup?

[00:12:38]

And that's really, that was sort of the germ. And I will say, and I know very, very proud citizen today of the likes of Jon Sesso, Don Peoples, Jim Cambich. There were a lot of people in that conversation, Bill Finnegan over in Anaconda, that really, could you couple cleanups with some element of redevelopment of the community and a particularly leveraging piece of work? Which you'll appreciate in the jobs that you're in, was a document that was done again, somewhere in the early eighties, excuse me, the early nineties called the Regional Historic Preservation Plan, the RHPP. You know, and the good thing,  I had some, by the way, wonderful advisors in here, both of whom actually have passed away since, but Jim Murray and Bill Lamont, and they had been involved in the work for Mayor Pena in Denver - kind of planning guys. And we kind of brought them in here and they worked with the city, county, you know, Butte Silver Bow City County, and Anaconda, Deer Lodge and with us. And it kind of helped through that document to realize that there were some things in Butte that ought not to be dug up and buried in the pit or whatever.

That there had to be a way to do a cleanup that was protective of human health and the environment, which was the objective of the game, but that could also celebrate the history. And that really was, I think, the genesis of the Granite Mountain overlook, the Old Works Golf Course, and I'm going to forget the name of the mineyard, but the one where they do the Folk festival.

Jaap: The Original Mine Yard.

Stash: The Original. Thank you. And just kind of funny stories. About 10 years ago I was here at a Tech event and I don't remember, I was living in Canada at the time or somewhere, and I remember going out there for just an event on one of those June afternoons in Montana, and thinking, "Oh my God, look what they've done with this." And you know, so to create that sort of public space, it's amazing. Amazing. Yeah. And how sad it would've been if you know, for whatever reason, sort of in the well intentioned, we need to make this place safe for everybody that we had destroyed those things. So, Yeah. And I will, "The what's in it for us kind of thing" was it facilitated cleanups that were actually more reasonable and I think it was, and there was a lot of removals done, and I'm sure you've talked to a lot of other people about that.

[00:15:24]

And Colorado Tailings back to them, pretty close to the creek. So digging them up and moving them, and of course they got moved locally and then the Copper Mountain Sports Complex was constructed on top of them, which was another sort of socioeconomic benefit that could come out of the cleanup.

But there was a lot of materials on the hill that really were not as bioavailable to the point to be problematic. And, of course, we looked at it and thought, "My God, if you keep digging this stuff up, you're just going to dig into more stuff because this hill is made of the stuff that we were worried about getting in the creek." And the plus for the company was a reasonableness of the cleanups and some of it going on today, even with the storm water management, et cetera, the things that need to be done to manage the fact that there is materials in place that need to be kept in particular out of the river, but coupling that with some things that would provide some benefit and socially and economically was really the key.

And the interesting thing is because the Superfund law actually evolved during this period. And Butte is actually one of the, I always say the first, and I think it actually is the first, but it was certainly one of the earliest of a concept of taking brown fields, industrial sites and turning them into green fields, things that are of use to communities and really that was very, and continues to be, how it's done in Europe, you know? Because if you think about it, nothing else in Europe. You've got centuries of good things and bad things underneath buildings and whatever. In this country, what precluded it oftentimes was the litigious nature of our society and the nature of the Superfund law. And that was just very simply that somebody, if we were to sell property to somebody, they'd become part of that chain of title. And the risk would be in them buying it from us, from the company, at the time, would've been that they now are a potentially responsible party, which was the term of ARCO. So across the country, people were spending gazillions of dollars cleaning these sites up for them to be a field with weeds in it, with a fence around it. And, of course, I guess you can do that with a little tiny chemical plant in the middle of nowhere. This was an entire community, entire communities, because I'll include Butte, Anaconda and Rocker and everything else in that.

[00:18:11]

So it was quite an important turning point. And I think if you talk to people that have tracked this statute, I think Butte would be pretty prominent in that you'd be in Anaconda again, things like the Old Works Golf Course and whatever. So it was in my, certainly my telling of the history, anyway, a good compromise for everybody. I think sitting here, whatever 30 years or so after I came here I think it stands the test of time when you drive around Butte.

Jaap: Yeah. It's amazing to think of, if things had just been fenced off you walk around, I walk the trails all the time. It's amazing. And to have that just be not cleaned up or fenced off would really been a shame. So I think it's wonderful that you guys fought for to have some reuse purposes.

Stash: Yeah, yeah. For all of these sites. And to be clear it wasn't, again, little, little joke we used to have, I had a wonderful general counsel I worked with later in my career and who said, "The only thing we bring to this party is money." And it was absolutely right. I mean, and that was just how that was. I mean, the company was liable.  And I think actually in sort of taking a half a step back and letting community leaders and state leaders, et cetera be on point a bit that's what led it. Because at the end of the day and I do think again, credits to Jon Sesso, Jack Lynch, others leadership at the time, sort of stepping up to the giant Los Angeles based corporation and the federal government and whatever, and just saying, "No, no, this is our community." And because without the leadership, this couldn't have happened, to be candid. So, I think, we probably, I think nothing else, maybe we brought money to the table and our willingness to recognize that, number one, and number two to engage in a very, very effective way. That was probably the only things we brought to the table. The leadership came from the community.

Jaap: Yeah, really early on. ARCO's having community groups talk and doing focus groups to get ideas of what the community wants this community to look like after cleanup.

Stash: Exactly. Exactly. And you know, and again, in fairness and you know, SARA and EPA, I mean, a lot of other real good leadership. I think in general, lots of good stuff happening. The hardest part of the early years was sort of the parallel sets of litigation that were going on and maybe speak to that a little bit because again, one of the things that, that I sort of inherited when I arrived here and built the team, et cetera was a particularly punitive piece of litigation called the Natural Resource Damage Lawsuit. And by the way, interestingly, to my knowledge, it's still the only use of that part of the law, the natural resource damage that's occurred under Superfund.

[00:21:31]

And I may be wrong on that. There may have been a couple of other cases that were brought. But again, as I understand the history and in fairness to the state at the time, the leadership in the early eighties, you know, you had this brand new law called Superfund. And it had this sort of a part of the law that was all around remediation, cleaning up, you know, joint, several, strict joint, several liability, all the other aspects.

And then it had another section called Natural Resource Damage. And it was sort of, and, you know, once you've done all this, whoever it is that's doing it, either the responsible party or through the Superfund, which was an oil company funded pot of money. Once that's all said and done, there was an additional aspect of the law that just said an entity, a federal, National Park Service, a sovereign Indian tribe may sue for additional damages. And it was damages. So it was intended to basically take the sites from being cleaned up to being restored. And again, probably not really well defined but, and that there was an opportunity for those same parties, in this case, the state of Montana, to seek compensatory damages for, so almost the simplistic way to look at it is you clean it up as you best can, and then you get sued for additional money to restore, and then you pay compensation for that which you cannot restore, okay?

And my understanding of the history was the reason the state brought that NRD lawsuit was a very sincere fear at the time that the company was going to cut and run. And I can only imagine, so this is all supposition on my part, but you know, we were dismantling the smelter in Anaconda. The pit was starting to fill up with water, et cetera, et cetera. And again, probably a lack of anyone knowing that much about how this law was working. As I understand, again, the history there was somewhere like the last possible second that they could, this very large lawsuit was brought against Atlantic Richfield at the time. And then  frankly it probably sat there for a number of years and it was really, again, in the sort of late eighties, early nineties where all of a sudden that litigation became very, very, active. And you know, so it is lawsuits happen and you know, it, again, I jokingly say to my European and Canadian friends that it is our national sport, actually not football, it's litigation. But the complication was despite all of the really collaborative work that was going on with the community and the state and I would say with EPA, because they were open to some of these brown fields to green fields comps, you know, constructs.

And again, you think about it, John Wardell and others, probably a little gutsy on their part because I think they were the only EPA division that were kind of doing this at that point in history. But in parallel, you had a lawsuit that was notionally, I forget, I think we were sued for about 800 million. It was about, yeah. And again, from the perspective of the company, we're spending a hundred million dollars a year. We're doing sort of as part of the package reasonable remedies to a large extent coupled with some things that were benefiting the community providing local jobs at that point.

[00:25:30]

So lots of good stuff happening, but with that sort of spend rate and this $800 million lawsuit hanging out there, it created a lot of tension. And, of course, in that the tension of not just lots and lots of lawyers on both sides, but all of the sort of in the back of myself, certainly as the GM. And I had accountability for the litigation and the cleanup. You know - that tension and my staff members being constantly deposed and drug into lawsuits, you know, was a challenging phase. And I will say at the same time, we were breaking ground on the Old Works golf course and everything else.

So really that piece of litigation went to court and again, I'm going to forget, it's up in Great Falls. Again, I, sometimes 95, 96, whatever. And we did a couple rounds, you know, in the ring as it were. And the judge at the time is typical of litigation, actually, caused us to go into a set of settlement discussions. And I think we were fortunate enough to have Jerry Lynch as Special Master and a guy from Butte and I suspect the judge was quite purposeful in that.

And I should just backtrack a minute. Sorry. Forgot, forgot a little bit of history.  We were in court, in fact, I remember because I was up at dinner after one day in court with all the lawyers and we were in court and at the same time we were debating the cleanup of Silver Bow Creek. And as we were moving toward the record of decision and everything, it became very clear to us that what we were being asked to do by the state of Montana as far as extent of cleanup looked a lot like what we were being sued for in court. Okay. If that makes sense? So what we were seeing was, and I don't remember the numbers at the time, but you know, a cleanup that was going to be a hundred million, make up a number you know, adding all of these restoration type aspects into it, we found ourselves in a position that we could be paying twice.

And I remember I'm up literally sitting in court and talking with our general counsel who happened to be up at court at the same time and just saying we need to stop the cleanup because we can't keep doing this. And it wasn't a physical cleanup, but it was a sort of agreeing to, like the study. I think we were in the study, we were in the design phase and it was for the green way for the cleanup, the Silver Bow cleanup. And it was clear that the way it was being driven by the state of Montana was in a direction that we would be doing everything that we were being sued for. And, of course, we're in court at the time, so we don't know if we're going to win or lose or settle or whatever. So I think it was that. And, by the way, nobody stops work under what's called a unilateral order. Because the company faced and it was a crazy $25,000 a day fines or whatever, you know.

So anyway, we stopped it. Quite a public moment as I recall, throughout the state of Montana. And you know, I'm sure a lot of people saying in the corporate world saying, "What? Is she crazy?" But it was sort of, I think that particular trigger that the judge kind of, there was a bit of a moment where maybe we would, we should try to settle this. You know, full stop.

And that worked for us. So then comes Jerry Lynch and really what was, and I get period of a year, year and a half, two years, that all kind of blended, but a series of very, and it was Joe Mazurek was AG, Mark Racicot was governor at the time. And they weren't, Joe was involved directly. Mark wasn't. But you know, some tense moments, but some pretty constructive moments that led to the settlement of the Natural Resource Damage suit. In large part, there was some lingering bits that then were resolved over time, but what that resulted in, and again, I don't remember the exact number, but it was north of a hundred million dollars. That then put in addition to what we, now I know, the state is still benefiting from that settlement and the projects that it's able to pay for every year for conservation, et cetera.

But that also then transitioned the cleanup of the Silver Bow Creek site from ARCO to the State of Montana which they did a very effective job of cleaning up over the period of 10 years. And that allowed the state then to be in with the partners, with EPA at the time to do remediation, restoration, whatever they wanted to do to, to clean up the creek. And, you know, we weren't in the position of doing something in the field, physically, on the land. At the same time, we were debating the very same issues in courts. So on top of it, sorry for the long story, but I guess this is  historic, right? I don't need to do sound bites.

You know, the long, short of it. I think, again, a bit like some of the green fields/brown field stuff, I think that was sort of a tipping point. First, it took a lot of the heat and light out of the relationships among the state, EPA and ARCO. And I know there were subsequent ones after I left the job. But I think a turning point toward a lot more productive relationship. And, you know, it was sort of after that time that, and actually it was my successor, Robin Bullock, who actually was on point for this one, I think I was in Russia at the time or something, but the sort of cash out settlement for the Clark Fork River.

[00:31:43]

And, again, I haven't paid super much of attention to that, but again, the idea is an adequate settlement in which the state could decide how to clean that up and part of it even just practical reasons. Well, I mean first of all from a sort of how to spend your money, the state was put in a position for Silver Bow Creek and for Clark Fork River, where they could pace it in a way that essentially they could do X amount of cleanup every year from the interest from the fund.

Okay. Which is just great. It's like how we all hope to plan our retirements, let's be honest, but I think also from other practical considerations A government entity, be it city, county or be a state is in a much better position to have the difficult conversations with landowners and fisheries interest and farmers and water in the creek and all of that than a large oil company. And, of course, at the time during, you know, during some of this, you know, starting from 2000 on, it went from a large oil company called Atlantic Richfield to a ginormous oil company called British Petroleum or BP. And I will say a foreign owned company. So you know, it just sort of transferred not only the local decision-making, but really did transfer all of the local control to people on the ground. And I think that whole concept of companies not doing the work themselves, but rather coming to sensible settlements. And then having the work in part, done by the government has been replicated, I think a few places around the United States. But certainly for something of the scope and scale of the Clark Fork I think made ultimate sense.

And I was really pleased. I guess it was a year or so ago that finally the company got to a settlement with Butte Silver Bow, you know? The whole idea of transitioning a lot of the upkeep and maintenance and running of programmatic things which a city/county's been doing for decades.

Jaap: In the early nineties, Butte Silver Bow gets their GIS system, or ARCO did the GIS system, which is such an asset to our local government and there's an article with Sesso because he was working for State at the time. He was up at the State saying Butte would never be able to afford this. This is really a gift.

Stash: Yeah, that's funny. Just talk about Jon and I, and I know he's gone on and just served this community. Yeah. You know, beyond anybody's expectations of anybody. But yeah, Jon was working up in, it was a small group of about four people. I can still see the office they were in, early GIS with the state of Montana.

And it was really, I remember that visit to Helena and first of all met Jon and then secondly he, uh just, just the potential for that technology, which of course now we all have it on our phones. In fact, I had to use it this morning to remember where the Archives were, where Quartz Street was, at that time was so novel, but you're right, things like that, the regional historic preservation plan, there were a number of things where it became clear that there was just some, certain things were sensible. I'll give you another example.

[00:35:16]

A lot of the water sampling and, you know, we had our consultants and the state had their consultants and EPA had consultants. So first of all, and by the way, we're not just paying our bills, we're paying the bills of the state of Montana and EPA too. That's how this works.

So obviously a cottage industry developing very quickly and with all due respect to my colleagues in environmental consultants and law and everything else. But why not use in, and I think it was the, well, Bureau of Mines was involved, but a number of people, why don't we just figure out a way to just fund one organization that candidly is going to be a credible organization because they're in the public trust rather than just having consultants working for everybody, and by nature, debating over everything. So, and again, Jon was quite, as I recall, quite instrumental in that. And then I think the other one, which was a huge watershed was the lead program, which I think continues to go on.

Jaap: Yeah.

Stash: And there again the city/county was the right entity to do public health. I mean we could have hired Johns Hopkins University and it wouldn't have mattered. They still would've been on our payroll. And the idea of figuring out a way that we could provide resources i.e. money and not be seen as buying the city/county or however any dispersions that might have been cast on that. But a way that was very transparent and very open. Again, all we brought to the table was money and have the city have those resources. And, of course, what they were able to do was not limit the lead work to just the mining, the lead sulfides, but were able to deal with other lead oxide issues, which were arguably and potentially more toxic from whatever people that may reload in their houses or lead paint or whatever it was. So yeah, it was a sensible approach and I think what it really set us up for, and I don't know the status of the program to date, but I'm as assume it still goes on.

It also allowed for funding, testing of children and providing community outreach. And again the company wasn't in a position to do that. And even if we were, we wouldn't have been viewed credibly to do that. So that was a very novel program. And if you think about this, all of these types of, because the other one was this idea of institutional controls, which was everything about talking about the original but sensible cleanup and then assurance that somebody is going to be making sure that cover stays in place till the end of time, you know? And I would say that that's going to be more likely to happen if people are using it and enjoying it and it's being utilized for some benefit to the community. But again, a lot of those early concepts, you know, I mean, I take some personal pride in that they're still going on today.

Jaap: It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. The sites and when they look at how often they're monitoring them. Yeah, it's a great.

Stash: And that was always the intent because you know, the idea is that the companies come and go, people come and go, but the idea of city/county government's here to stay I mean there, as long as there's a Butte Silver Bow or an Anaconda Deer Lodge or whatever it's going to need governance. And that will be in the form of community leadership, elected leadership. And anyway, I think importantly, with all the important checks and balances that there isn't just strictly, but I'm sure that's with state oversight and some EPA oversight, so you have enough checks and balances in the systems that there's assurance that the community's being protected.

But yeah it is interesting to see that it has come full circle. It's taken, took a lot longer than I thought it would, but well,

Jaap: So this is a perfect segue. I can remember in 1991 or 92, There's an article, "ARCO Wants Out Of Superfund In The Next 10 Years." You know, and do you look at that and just think, oh gosh, 30 years later we're still here?

Stash: Yeah. It's an interesting question, you know, first of all that was yeah, there was a little bit of aspiration in that statement. A funny story actually. And Robin Bullock and I, as you might imagine, we are dear friends. And she teases me a lot of times because she was working at MSE at the time and I recruited her to ARCO in ‘91 and she reminds me oftentimes as recent as our traditional summer gathering last year, and that you know, that I told her she had a job for 10 years.

[00:40:08]

But you know, it is funny to kind of look at. We had quite a lot of momentum. And I'm starting to now delve into watching it from afar. And I think with Old Works and the Copper Mountain sports thing, the settlement of the NRD lawsuit, the work Robin did around getting the Clark Fork River settled. I didn't mention it before, but you know, the Silver Lake water thanks to Sister Mary Jo and others that talk about this interesting piece of litigation. Yeah. But a piece of litigation that was really around fixing water pipes and being sure that people had clean drinking water. And Butte became a real opportunity to reallocate the Silver Lake system in a sensible way as between the Washington Corporation and the mine. The community of Butte for economic development, the community of Anaconda for economic development. And we thought at the time for potential instream flow for the rivers.

So there was just a lot of fantastic momentum. And somehow in the nineties, and again, I won't speak to it because I don't know the complete history. I think the bit of loggerheads that EPA and the state of Montana got into over things like the Parrot Tailings, and I know that that conversation continues today. In my personal opinion I think slowed things down. And I also think there was in the Anaconda Deer Lodge situation, probably not as quick a resolution as between the company and the community. And I'll put EPA in there too for whatever reason. It could have been again, you mentioned Jon Sesso again, but Jon's leadership here was, I think, is pretty evident and will be quite evident in the record.  But I think the sort of just not seeming over the hump in Anaconda. And I think whatever the conflict was between the state and EPA kind of slowed things down a little bit but at this point in time, I was even gone from BP, I suspect some of the distraction BP had around Anaconda, et cetera. For whatever reason there wasn't and I wish it could have been different. And I think part of that is on top of getting stuff done. Because I don't think there was ever an issue with things getting done. I know yards were being cleaned and things were being resolved in that sort of, I'll say notionally, 2000 – lots of really good things from 2005-on.

But I think the missing for the community was sort of that earlier than 2020 or whatever, sort of really being able to completely own the future of Superfund and what it would be to the city. So I was thrilled when I saw the settlement. And the only reason, I guess more of a time value money. I mean, Butte would've gotten more money out of it had it been settled 15 years earlier. I think they're lots of players and you know, complicated, complicated sets of issues.

[00:43:44]

And I think too, there is a little bit of, it's funny to think about, but you know, that moment when you're the chief executive or you are the whatever, and you're signing that piece of paper and in the back of your mind, you gotta be thinking, and I'm letting these people off the hook and obviously there's claw-back provisions and everything else, but you know, and I really am taking this, I just caught it and I'm going to have to clean it. You know, I'm sure there might have been some moments like that too, that sometimes makes it difficult to really sign that final piece of paper. And again, obviously I was 15 years gone at that point in time, so I don't really know what happened. But I guess on track now, I guess it sounds like.

Jaap: It sounds really promising. Look forward to that, except, Yeah. Because you're right, the nineties, it's just a buzz with projects. I mean, they're just, it's constant and so much happening and then, yeah, it does kind of just, yeah.

Stash: And I don't know what it would've been, but probably, even in just what was going on in the world and financial crises and everything else, I'm sure there were other reasons that that had high centered a little bit. But on the flip side, it potentially gave everyone involved more time and practice, for lack, because again, you and certainly this isn't something the company would've been able to do probably at all. But you know, you think about, again, this community and the leadership, the lead program now has probably been in place for 20 plus years.

So I think maybe the opportunity to manage these programs as a pilot and sort of an annual year to year sort of commitment. There may have just been more confidence in the part of everyone that this was the right time to really kind of take the reins. And it's not everything. Whatever the company is, BP currently. But we'll have, and Washington responsibility of the Berkeley pit. I mean there are aspects of this that will continue on for a very, very long time. But yeah.

Jaap: So, well, let's move on to the Berkeley pit, I guess. So ARCO at one point sued the Washington Corporation for diverting water into the pit from their operations. And I guess I'd just like you to talk about the Berkeley pit.

[00:46:12]

Stash: Another one of those sort of . . . There's nothing simple about this story. Of course, there's nothing simple about the history of Butte. So why would we start now?  Again, this goes back to maybe something I mentioned a little bit earlier in this dynamic between two companies. A company that sells a sells a business to another company. And what I think was probably either a sincere sense of, "No, you took that. No, no, no, no. You took that." What's the old expression? Nothing good about a zero sum game. And again, I wasn't involved in any of the conversations, but I suspect there was a little bit of "I won. You lost. No, no, no, I won. You lost." So you start with the dynamic. And what was always clear was on the land, that the City of Butte was our accountability. And the mine reclamation, which of course continues today was the responsibility of Dennis Washington and the Washington Corporation, because they had the permits.

The Berkeley pit was a little fuzzier. So the suing to - because water was going to the pit and it was and we were the ones sort of - actually EPA kind of looked to both companies. The fact that the water coming out of the Yankee Doodle. It was called, they had a name - Horseshoe Bend. Horseshoe Bend. You had to go from memory there was exacerbating a situation which was a rising pit, rising water level. And of course at that time a lot of concern in the community, lots of concern in EPA and the state and everything else. But what it really did horrible to say, but sometimes litigation can be the start of a conversation. And in a funny way, it actually did bring the parties to the table because - this again is quite typical of Superfund.

Oftentimes the parties that are being held responsible can be so busy fighting each other, that they're not helping themselves with the other debates that are going on with the EPA in the state. And just speaking for the company I was with at the time, we were in litigation with the state of Montana, we're in litigation with EPA over their past costs, the money they were spending to oversee us. And we're now in litigation with the company to whom the mine was sold. We actually never went to court but lots and lots of depositions and lots of money burnt in big piles with law firms everywhere. It did prompt a settlement. And that, by the way, is still confidential. So I won't get into to the details. I guess there maybe a bit of the driving force there was we were at a point where EPA had made their decision on the solution. And it did involve actually Washington having the ability to mine the water. It forbade solution mining, the construction of a treatment plant some decisions on when the level would be triggered and when we actually, I know that's happened here in the last couple of years where water would actually be discharged down Silver Bow Creek.

[00:49:55]

I think the Washington people would say the same thing, a really sensible solution, settlement for both companies. As you can imagine quite a few characters involved. I can say this now because everybody's been long gone from the company, but Dennis Washington to his credit, was a very, very successful miner. And I think there was always a bit of, what's the word? You know, a bit of a, "Okay, we sold him this mine for nothing, and he's made a lot of money off of it." So if you can imagine that dynamic. So let's just say some interesting conversations. And it is funny just and I'm saying this now for history, but the you know, the dynamics among individuals and you know, the sort of tension that existed between a bunch of high paid executives and an entrepreneur who sees something that the high paid executives didn't see and makes a lot of money out of almost that sort of backdrop of the personalities.

I think as happens because we're all human beings, sometimes can kind of color the business conversation. But I think again, credit to everyone involved including ARCO's leadership at the time and to a degree myself and the team and the Washington folks. We got past it. And I guess water gets treated today and I guess some of it going down the creek, I guess some of it's still being remined, but quite a lot of it going down to the creek.

Jaap: Yeah. Just within the last couple years.

Stash: I actually do kind of remember, living in London for the last seven years and in Canada before that, I do have a habit of going into the Montana Standard and seeing what the headlines are most days.

Jaap: It's one of my least favorite topics, but in 1995, there's the snow geese issue. And I just I hate that issue, but can you talk about it?

Stash: Yeah, I can.

Jaap: Let's talk about that, that is still such an issue that is talked about today.

Stash: Yeah. Well, it's funny, and I guess I brought it up when I was a commencement speaker at Montana Tech thinking I was just actually giving a number of students some good advice. And this is a personal reflection back to my commenting about what sometimes drives decision making. I think I'd been GM a couple of years and it's funny how you can remember where you were when sort of thing. And the geese died and I think our initial assumption was it was something with the pit. But I was literally driving down from Helena and I got a call from our experts in Denver that were sampling necropsy. It's funny how you remember a word, even, probably the only time I ever really used that word. And they said, "Well, it looks like it's a disease that can be caused by grain called aspergillosis." So it's like, "Oh, thank God. Thank God it wasn't the pit."

And the mistake I made was, and I remember actually getting some caution on that from the likes, I think some of the MR guys, maybe Frank Gardner at the time, and certainly the scientists saying, preliminary results. But it was such good news and I don't remember what was going on at the time, but I decided to make that public. And believe me, this is a story I use a lot when I'm advising other people, mentoring people in their careers that, yeah, let's listen to the experts. You know, that's Dr. Fauci, you know, you don't get ahead of the science sort of thing. And so anyway, long and short it wasn't. But a couple of days after that, and as I always say about myself, I went from being the lady who killed the geese to the lady who killed the geese and then lied about it. And innocent, but what's the old, it's again another one you use you know, was I evil or was I stupid? It's always better to be stupid than evil, but stupid's still stupid, you know? So you know, anyway, long and short, so, yeah. Yeah. Little did I know that - I don't know. I haven't Googled myself lately, but it probably still pops up.

Jaap: Sara Sparks told me a story that I would just like to ask you about. So she had said that you had supported an interpretive center at the Anselmo mine yard. Is that sounding familiar?

Stash: Yeah.

Jaap: And she had said that the historic preservation officer at the time, Mark Reavis, had written you something about it, and then she said you went up to Sarah and said it's off the table.

Stash: Say that again.

Jaap: She said that Mark Reavis had written, I believe you, a letter about it, and then you had told Sarah, "That's off the table. Don't ask me about funding for that again." And I was wondering if you recalled that or . . .

Stash: Wow. I thought I remembered everything that happened. That's really interesting. I sort of vaguely remember it, but not the specifics. And to be honest with you, my guess is that I probably meant that to be the beginning of a conversation, not the end of the conversation, but obviously it was interpreted that way. Did she mention what year it was?

Jaap: Oh, I don't know what year it was. You know, people still talk about that being a great interpretive center and then I thought, Oh, how interesting.

[00:55:36]

Stash: I mean, if it's still a concept, hopefully something the city would be able to do. Okay. That's interesting. I'm going to have to go back in my . . . it's funny because I don't . . .

Jaap: It's always funny what different people remember too.

Stash: Don't remember. Exactly. Exactly.

Jaap: Sarah said it was up in Helena.

Stash: Up in Helena. Okay. Well, I know she and I owe each other a glass of wine at some point. So maybe we'll reconstruct that one. That's really - the short answer is, no. I don't remember enough details to do it. But I do suspect, I mean, I think everything with the historic stuff, I mean, I think in general we thought made sense. It may have been just almost a moment that we were having with the city or whatever at the time. Because I guess maybe - and I won't reflect on that specifically, but I don't, because I don't remember the specifics. But again, with any negotiations, there was always somebody pushing a little bit too hard, you know, so I suspect there's probably several examples of probably missed opportunities because there was a view that one party or the other overplayed their hand a little bit. And I suspect I had numerous of them myself actually, or the company themselves just. I don't know. You know, this whole idea that, what's the old expression, in any negotiation, everybody should walk away from the table feeling a little angry about what they didn't get. But everybody equally angry or equally feeling, you know. So I have this feeling it may have been one of those dynamics where somebody overreached a little bit.

Jaap: I have one more specific thing I want to ask, and then I know Clark has some questions also. So, kind of going back to Sara, actually, she always talked about she was from Butte, so it was easy for her to say I live here, I'm from here. I want the best solution because this is my home. And I'm just curious, was it difficult for you not being from Butte with the community looking at you and saying - did you get pushback from, ‘you're not from here’, ‘you don't know what's best for here’ - or?

Stash: Yeah. It's a great question. The short answer is no. And I reflect on this a lot, in fact, I'm going to do it. I mean I do it in public speaking even. And I found, even early days, Butte very receptive on a personal basis. And I don't know, maybe I just was being stupid, but I think fundamentally the combination of ARCO having actually treated employees very well with pensions, et cetera. The fact that I think my style and the style of the young staff around me, and I hired a lot of people from Butte.  I think a lot of people really did see us as trying to do the right thing for the community. And I think that then coupled with our contribution, hiring a lot of people from Tech, the great work that Bill Bullock and others did in building Pioneer Technical, the fact that a lot of the construction work stayed local. I always kind of felt like I got the benefit of the doubt in Butte.

Jaap: Good.

Stash: I didn't in Missoula. And I think it was a lot easier to sort of demonize the company there, because we weren't part of that community at all. And just all the dynamics around the Milltown Dam and the river and et cetera, et cetera. I think it made it more difficult there. But I think in Butte, Anaconda you know, no, having said that I'm not from here so I don't have the history and certainly wouldn't profess to have the depth of feeling that Sarah and others would have around this being their community. But certainly didn't ever really feel a not from here. You know? And by the way, that's with all, again, respect to differences of opinion around digging up the Parrot Tailings or not digging up the Parrot Tailings.

[00:59:40]

And I mean you know lots and lots of debates about stuff small and large. Yeah. Certainly felt like, and you know, the good news about that is had that not been the dynamic just let's just say hypothetically that ARCO decided to manage us out of Los Angeles and have a couple of high paid help environment scientists and lawyers on the ground. I don't think it would've been the same. You know, I think we would've been the other as a company.

And I think the fact that we were here and I was commenting last night at dinner with  Joe McCafferty and couple of other folks from Tech and we were talking about kids and grandkids and everything else you talk about when you're 60. And I recalled that most of the ARCO people that I either hired here locally, Robin Bullock being one of them, people we brought into town, Chuck Stillwell, others, their children were raised here. And it kind of came up in the context of somebody saying, "Well, I'm not from here, but my kids grew up here and they consider Butte home." Well, I'll tell you right now, the Bullock kids and Stillwell kids and a whole bunch of other kids view Butte as home. So I think the fact that, you know, we lived in the community, I think made a difference. And that's sort of, I'll say company/community dynamic. Yeah. Yeah.

Jaap: Clark, did you want to ask some of your questions?

Grant: Sure. I kind of divided things into three sets of questions.

Stash: Okay.

Grant: Okay. So I’d love to get to these if we can. The first set is more general.  I wanted to just ask what appeals to you about this kind of corporate work? Like as a child, did you think, "I want to work for a multinational oil company?" What draws you to this work?

Stash: It's an interesting point. Yeah. Because I continue to do it. I'm now sitting on corporate boards. Right. You know, it's not the corporate work. Personally, could have been just as happy in government or running a college or whatever. I think what's appealing about it is the opportunity to really make a difference and to lead and to influence other people's lives. And I don't know that I would've been happy as a just use an example as an investment banker at JP Morgan, kill me now, you know, even though I'd probably be a lot richer than I am now, but I think for me, the advantage was the ability to do very interesting work in interesting places.

And I've built my whole career on a personal basis as being pretty good at bridging the company's interest to the interest of the community. And I have to laugh now because, you know, all this stuff now on ESG, environment, social governance, all the catch words of the day. I always say, I've been doing this for 40 years and now it's cool. But I do think there's a growing understanding among corporates that didn't exist 40 years ago. That yes, it's about your shareholders and making money for your shareholders, but it's about your stakeholders. It's about your employees, your customers, your communities, and the shareholders.

[01:03:01]

And I think maybe Butte probably influenced me, my time here probably set that stage for me, that it was about getting that mutual benefit that right as amongst the parties. And I'll just give a real example. My last job probably couldn't be any more different than Butte, but it was the same as Butte. I'm living in London, I'm working for a company called Telo Oil and I'm working in Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. Okay. And guess what I focused on? I was in charge of operations, engineering and external affairs. So I replicated, by the way, nobody ever puts those things together, but I'd done it in Butte. So I wound up doing it for this this fun little company that operates in Africa. And I will tell you now, trying to build an oil field in Kenya. Yeah, there was a lot of corporate stuff around, can we make money from this? And is this good for our shareholders? And there was a lot of engineering stuff around how to build the equipment, et cetera. But the big issue was what I'd like to say, creating an enabling environment in the community for which that project would be welcome. And it was everything about the Turkana people and very desperately poor part of the world.

Very interesting part of the world, the high rift valleys. And to do that kind of corporate work where you're partnering with the government of Kenya, the Turkana, and I'll add, and I spend about three hours a day still doing it now, opportunity to mentor young Kenyan, Ghanian and Ugandan engineers early in their career. And in a way be a little bit part of their lives. Your comment about Butte, that's why I do corporate work. And I could have done that if I were working for a government or else. I think the beauty of corporate work, this is a very long answer to a very short question. The reason that the corporate work is fun is you get to do it in a lot of different places and a lot of different contexts.

I think I would've been just as happy doing this for the state department or whatever, but you know. So I think it's less about a corporation and more about the kind of organization that you're in.

Grant: In a corporate environment, the mission, at the end of the day, ultimately has to be profit in order for them to continue to exist. Right?

Stash: Yes, but again, I'm just finding that, and I'm going to call it the last 12 to 18 months that's changing. And I truly believe, and I think some of this will be driven by millennials and Gen Z and whatever and you're starting to hear it from, again, the likes of JP Morgan and BlackRock and everything else that companies need to have a social conscience. And how I see that is this has got to be good for everybody. Even if you went to the most extreme, this is just about the shareholders. Well, you know what? If the community ain't happy, nobody's happy. I think particularly in extractive industry, oil and gas, mining I'll call big landscapes, but heck, even a beer factory that's using too much water in a drought prone area is not going to be a successful business. So, I mean, so I think it's something that people didn't consciously know, but you had to have known. If you look at companies that have really fallen from grace, you know, because of lying to people, Volkswagen Dieselgate or whatever.  I think the difference now, and I hadn't really thought about this before, sorry to belabor, historically, that acknowledgement that it isn't just about the shareholders always happened in response to a crisis. Okay. And this was a crisis. Lots of other crises. VW was a crisis. Companies losing their reputation. I think the difference now, and it really accelerated in the last couple of years, is the fact that now people are saying maybe we oughta think about this ahead of time.

Okay? And that's everything from what are our racial and gender dynamics of our employees? Are they happy here? Do they feel included? Do our customers respect us? Do our business partners? Our supply? You know, is this just a zero sum game back to my earlier comment? Or is this actually a mutual benefit where everybody wins a little bit and everybody loses a little? I think the difference now is, and you guys can correct me, in five years if this, whatever post covid circles back to a not very, not very healthy business dynamic. But I think it's changed and I think the more the millennials and the Gen Z start to run the world, you know, I'm an optimist. I can make a political statement, the last four years of whatever, not withstanding, I actually think that that's a blip. And I think that the world, the globalization, the sort of environment, social governance, the sort of purpose led companies, all the catch words of the day, I think it's a real thing and I think it's going to make the world a better place.

[01:08:20]

Grant: It's interesting to hear you say that it is a genuine change of heart. Not being in this world, I have no perspective on that. Being cynical, I just assume that they'll continue to exploit with a smiley face.

Stash: Now what's driving it now, now I'll add my little cynical bit.

Grant: Okay.

Stash: Who's starting to care is the investment world. And the investment world is starting to care because they sell stocks and bonds to human beings. And if the human beings are going to care, then the investment guys are going to care despite whatever their normal inclination would be. And then I think in a very helpful way, pressure is put on corporates. I think previously, particularly in this country and now I had the benefit of working in a lot of different countries and different continents and different structures. This country, it's always been sort of an us and them between the companies and the regulators. All of a sudden now, you've got prominent investors, I think in very good ways, saying that you know, we're not going to give you money, if you don't tell us exactly how you're going to deal with climate change. We want to understand how many people of color and how many women you have on your boards and your whatever. And I think that's a very healthy pressure. And I also will say I'm very pleased to see the reaction of a lot of the companies on the voting law issue in Georgia that's going on right now.

[01:09:52]

And they're just saying, "Look, you know, all due respect Republican leadership, whatever." Not to get political on this, but I think a lot of that is because they're hearing that from their customers, you know? So I think the more informed and the more transparent and the more people, real human beings get involved in stuff, that's, at the end of the day, that's what drives government. That's what drive it. The heretofore known as power bases. What drives them is the customers. Whether you're a voting member of the public and your government, or you are a customer or you are a shareholder or whatever. So I do think, I think it's fundamentally changed, and I do think a lot of that is generational in a very, very good way.

And I also think maybe just a little bit of a state of the time, but I also think the transparency that comes with our world now for people that take the time to be informed is a really good thing.

Grant: A bit of optimism for today.

Stash: I am very optimistic.

Grant: I wanted to ask just regarding the general public in Butte, do you think that they know how Superfund works and what is going on?

Stash: Oh, I've been gone 15 years, so I can't, I think, let me just speak to the time I was here. I think the short answer is, yeah, I think they did, and I think today probably still do. But I think unfortunately, and this is the negative of where we are now, I think in a way, and I'm not the first human being to say this, what I would worry about today is, is this sort of polarized world that we've seemed to have gotten to. And this is the negative of some of the technological wonders that we have. I would be a little fearful that because now everybody relies on an app or a Facebook page rather than, and I'm sure Sara Sparks would tell you this, the mind numbing public meetings we had. Yeah. But having said that, I mean, I was oftentimes surprised how many people showed up, you know? And so I have to wonder if maybe what the missing today would be, and this is not just a Superfund and Butte comment, this is a more general comment, that lack of, what I would call, real civic involvement. Whether perhaps there's a little bit less knowledge on that, I would say the average person because they're not participating in, I mean the advantage of Butte, again, going back 20 years ago was, I mean, this was the thing. I mean this was a big issue in Butte and I think not to a person, but I think a lot more people were probably engaged than maybe are now.

And you know, and I guess my encouragement there was stay involved and find out what the issues are because like everything, it's the public that's going to keep everything on the straight narrow. And so an informed public is going to keep it much better, in a much better way on the straight now.

Grant: There's a lot of talk now as there is every five or so years in Butte of a renaissance. We're on the verge of a renaissance and Butte is going to make this resurgence any day now.

Jaap: Yeah. For years now.

Grant: I've listened to oral histories from 1983 where they were talking about that. So my own opinion is that one of the obstacles to significant redevelopment of the Uptown, for instance, is the visual impact of mining to the East. And so I'm curious, when you look east, what do you see in Butte? Do you see the litigation? Do you see the environmental mess? What do you see?

Stash: Yeah. You know, I don't know. I mean, first of all, Montana in general now coming out of Covid, I think what's limited Montana because it isn't just Butte has really been the distance to population centers and the job base. Again, I'll be an optimist here. I think Montana is going to see a bit of a resurgence and I think in this time it, it might actually be for real because it will be not just low income jobs around recreation, but actual higher and basically what we've all proved to ourselves in the last 18 months is you can live on Zoom and you can work from anywhere.

[01:14:21]

And I think with better fiber we've sort of solved our last mile problem, all the other issues Montana had. So and just because my niece is quarantined with me and she had a buddy, she did a PhD in chemical engineering and her buddy of hers is living in Whitefish. Guy in his late twenties works for Google and lives in Whitefish and is doing just fine. So I think that's a plus for Montana. So start with Montana. That I think does point for toward a bit of a sensible resurgence because there's better paying jobs in this state. I think for Butte that the city has done a good job with it by differentiating itself. And I'm going to go back over a hundred years.

What made Butte unique in the West to begin with was the fact that it was an urban center in cowboy country. And I don't think it's lost that. And I think some of the things we were talking about earlier actually enhance that. The folk festival, the kind of, I'll call it the sort of urban vibe that you have in this little town in the middle of Montana. I think that's a plus. And you know if I were in charge and I know it's happening, I would play that up. Yeah. You know, in other words Montana's cool because you can live here and you can have a great corporate or whatever job, but do it remotely and going to the Bay Area on a need to do basis only.

And, of course come with those kind of jobs also comes the entrepreneurs that will build their own little startup businesses, et cetera. So yeah, again, the short answer is I do think there's an opportunity for a resurgence, but again, I would play to the uniqueness of being able to live in kind of a funky urban sort of Soho of the of the Rockies or whatever. And at the same time be a half hour from world class skiing and rivers you can fish and wide open spaces and clean air and great place to raise your kids. And I mean, not to mention university here in town. I think it's got all the right elements. I mean, the mine is the mine, that's just part of the landscape. It's kind of funny having just lived in London, you know, it was kind of a mix. You know, London's a pretty gritty town in many ways, coupled with these like, Oh my god kind of scenery of all these like, kind of famous places or whatever.

So, I mean, I don't but to me, the mine is kind of what makes the place in a way and not for everybody, but you know, I think there is a certain appeal, and I think there's a lot to be sold on Butte. I think particularly, I'm sorry again to belabor this, but so much, so much of the United States now is so frigging generic. You know, whether you're in Birmingham, Alabama or wherever, and it's kind of the same. You know, built last week - sorta outdoor malls and the same subdivisions built by the same builders. And in fact, it's funny because this morning actually driving around looking for this place, because I had it in my mind it was 1700 Quartz, which by the way, doesn't exist. I figured that out. How unusual and unique and yeah, there's some things that need to be fixed in Butte, but I just happened to be driving in that kind of, that old mansion district or wherever. I mean there's some things that make this very, very special place. So anyway, I am an optimist, by the way.

[01:17:58]

Grant: Yeah, thanks for that. That's why I wanted to ask kind of again, about corporate culture. You know to me, those corporations, the boardrooms or the meetings take place, decisions are made that affect people's lives seem so impenetrable. And so having been there on the inside for so long, what is it like within those companies? What is the culture?

Stash: Well, I mean, I've been with a lot of different companies and I think I'm going to be optimistic again. I think it's changing. To be honest in the old days and in many settings now, it can be pretty insular because if you think about it, and part of it was the makeup of boards. And then that's changing by the way, which is why I'm also a huge advocate for diversity on boards. But if in the old days it consisted of a bunch of CEOs and they all sat on each other's boards a lot of times they were all from the same sector and pardon expression, but you can pretty quickly start to believe your own bullshit, if you only talk to people who are exactly like you. And that I think was a huge problem. And I won't say just corporate America, that was a big problem dating back probably a big problem in government also. What's changed now is a realization that you do better if on boards and ultimately CEOs and executive teams work for boards, if you do have a diverse spectrum of people who bring different experience to the boardroom and are strong enough to say what they think and that you have a culture that you're . . . so I think that's changing.

And again, a lot of times driven by investors, I mean the people who invest their expectations and their expectations of purpose driven companies and doing the right things, not only by shareholders, but more broadly in community, et cetera. I think it's becoming less that way. And having said that, I mean the Volkswagen stuff, not to pick on Volkswagen this morning, but you know, I mean companies still make mistakes. So I think the trick is that inside of any organization, be it at the board level or be at the executive level, that you have enough checks and balances that something that may sincerely just look like a good idea, but everybody kind of gets on that train and you don't have those people saying, "Wait a minute, may I offer a different perspective." And I think as long as companies do that, you know, with a backdrop again, of purpose, et cetera they could be very well run. And certainly not every company in the world is well run, but I think the trend is in a good direction. I actually sit on the boards now in the UK, Canada, and the US and I'm seeing similar trends in all three jurisdictions. Is it perfect? No, but is it getting a little bit better? I think it is.

Grant: What about discrimination? Have you experienced that in your career?

Stash: Yeah, you know, sure I did. I mean a woman drilling engineer. But first of all, maybe this was a defense mechanism, and maybe it goes back to the question about how well I fit into the Butte community. Maybe I chose to hear what I wanted to hear, and didn't worry too much about the naysayers. But I will say on the discrimination thing, I still think in this country and in other countries our corporate leadership is not representative enough of gender and race and ethnicity, et cetera.

And I think, whereas 40 years ago, there was a sort of a sense of I'll just do my job really well, and everyone will understand that I deserve to be here. I'm a little more muscular now that I actually do think that. You know, it's just kind of easy to just keep hiring people who look like you, you know? So I do think, you know, personally, I'm a fan of, if a muscular intervention is needed to get the makeup of leadership the right way, I'm all for that. And, yes, a meritocracy, but you know, sometimes you just, and some of that is, again, back to my comment about a bunch of white guys CEOs you know, I think by nature they're going to more likely to see people who look like them, be the one who had the highest merit. I mean, my standing joke is that "Oh God, if I were in charge, I'd just hire a bunch of type A women," jokingly, of course. But I think the trends are all in  a better direction. And if intervention is necessary, it should be taken, societally or on a company basis.

Grant: My final question in the kind of general category is I wanted to ask, and we've asked this of another person as well, I can't remember who it was, but retroactive liability. Is it just? Is it fair?

[01:23:22]

Stash: It's unusual. In fact there was even different debates at different times in Superfund around whether it was constitutional. And I'm not a lawyer, although I've been accused of practicing law without my license. So I won't speak to the constitutionality. Is it fair? Probably not. Was it necessary? Yeah, probably. Having said that, and that's why again, Superfund is an unusual law. The cleanups could have been paid for by the fund.  But the interesting thing about that fund is kind of depending on different administrations, the fund was either funded or not funded. So I guess when I say necessary, you know, had it been really set up, it's almost like the debate around healthcare. I think something that is a public health and it's not public health is very difficult to get right. I don't know if the parallel here is something that really had that tax on companies been sufficient and been permanent enough that you could have had this sort of, we all throw in a bucket, and then that's used to deal with all these legacy issues that none of us caused, but we wound up being party to, that could have been a good construct.

I think the unfairness of the retroactivity was the fact that, well, we pay into the fund and we're being asked to pay here. But the truth of the matter was that fund was kind of up and down depending on the administration. So again it's like the sort of public option, private options around healthcare. All you're doing is you're just sort of allocating who pays for what. So I think the reason I say necessary is I think that with a fund that wasn't guaranteed. I think it would've been hard to clean up everything that needed to be cleaned up in the United States. And I think largely, and again, I've lost track of it because I've been out of the country for some time, but you don't hear much about Superfund anymore. So I think that, you know, on the national stage. So I think enough companies wound up stepping up to the plate and enough fund money was generated to pay for a lot of the problems that loomed pretty large for the country in the early 1980s.

Grant: And those early litigation efforts by ARCO, like you were talking about, to get out of the liability, the anger and shock, what do you recall, I know you're not a lawyer, but what was the line of thought there? How were they going to get out of the retro?

Stash: Well, it wasn't get out of it. It was a little bit of a fairness thing. It's a sort of, this just can't be so.  A couple of things, the retroactivity just seemed wait a minute, you know, I can't be sued for something that happened a hundred years ago that I didn't do.

Grant: We didn't mine this.

Stash: Exactly. I think the other thing that seemed unfair and I would argue probably still is unfair that the fact that it was a deepest pockets pays. Okay. So  if the three of us all were in the business and the two of us don't have any money, you're paying the bill. And that you as a matter of fact only contributed toward 20% of the problem, if you got money, and we don't, you get to pay. And I think at the time ARCO realized, and I'm sure the Washington Corp in the context of the Berkeley pit, here you had two entities that had the money to pay. And there were a number of other little minor mining companies or whatever that and it almost didn't matter. So I think that combination of retroactivity, the strict joint and several, the idea that I call it the deep pockets paid just didn't seem fair. And to be candid, it wasn't fair. However, it was the law. And I have a feeling whoever constructed the law probably saw it as necessary. And I think there were a number of different attempts on attacks on the constitutionality of superfund. I don't know how serious any of them really were. The interesting thing is it's never been overturned, right? Yeah. Okay. And the law is 40 years old.  So you know and I would say to a point, maybe almost served its purpose again, I'm sure there's some lingering Superfund issues out there that are still being dealt with, probably made quite a few of 'em. But 40 years for a law that arguably doesn't completely line up with the constitution is, you know, and again, according to, at least, some legal theory, it's pretty remarkable.

[01:28:09]

Grant: These are my more particular questions about the cleanup and Butte and things within the company. When you were debating the remedy on the Butte Hill here, were there strong proponents of just capping it and fencing it and walking away?

Stash: No. And thinking back on the dynamics of it, we all lived here and with a great amount of respect, gratitude, affection for the people that I worked for in Los Angeles, they deferred to locals, our local decision making. I mean, we were a bunch of 30 year olds, it's crazy how much autonomy we were given. Yeah. And you know, some of it was obviously I had an important job to do to really explain how things were on the ground. And then I would say at the end of the day, I think a lot of my leaders at the time, many of whom I'm still in touch with, were pretty proud of what we did here.

You know - so no, there really wasn't. I mean, I think if that were to and let me just say something had, and this maybe gets back to your earlier question about Sarah or whatever,  I had to be careful that the company felt appreciated. Okay. And then that's going to sound kind of strange. For instance, if the cover of the Montana Standard every day was just negative, negative, negative, negative, negative against the company, I think there might have been a little bit of, what the hell are you doing? I mean we're spending all this money. You're doing all this "extra stuff"  and these people are still yelling at us. I'm being obviously stark, purposefully provocative and stark in my description, but that wasn't the vibe. I mean, the vibe in general was, Yeah, we had our challenges and well, I'll tell you, there were a lot of mornings, I woke up to the Montana Standard and just fear of what was going to be in it. Because that was my conduit to my bosses what they knew about what I was doing was what they read in the paper back in the day.   I think fundamentally great delegation to the people on the ground. More companies could do that. You know, I wish more companies did that as well. Coupled with the fact that the vibe was in general more cooperative than uncooperative.

Grant: What about your first impression of Butte? Earlier you had, I think you had described the Colorado tailings as interesting. I'm glad to be polite, but without being polite, I want your first impression of Butte.

Stash: Okay. But remember I was born in Seville, Pennsylvania.

Grant: Sure.

Stash: So that's a really interesting question. I probably was shocked a little bit by the scale of the problems, despite the fact that my Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Emory lived across the street from a column dump. And that was burning, by the way, because it was coal mining region. So I just remember, and I remember with Bill and I driving up to the top of Smelter Hill and seeing the 3000 acres of tailings ponds. I think I was surprised by the scale. What I will tell you is I wasn't here very long and I don't, I sort of stopped seeing the things that might have been at the time, not so pretty, for lack of a better word. I will tell you now, I don't, in fact, when you said the mine, I'll have to take a notice on the way out. I know it's expanding in size, but I think when I drove into town yesterday, I'm kind of glad to be home. You know, and just noticing that the new things and noticing that a number of the buildings uptown looked like people have put some money, you put money into things, some of the houses and whatever. And I'm just sort of focused on what's changed and I don't even notice it anymore. Yeah, I don't know.

Jaap: Well, I think it's interesting. I've been here my whole life and so I don't notice it either. But Clark has lived here like five-ish, six years.

Grant: Seven years.

Jaap: Seven years. And so it's interesting that blindness.

Grant: Yeah, I see it every day.

Stash: Are you from here?

Grant: No, I'm from Arkansas.

Stash: So you see, and how long have you been here?

Grant: Seven years.

Stash: Seven years. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know when my tipping point was, and to be honest, maybe mine was a little earlier because you know, when you're sort of responsible for, maybe my journey was a little bit quicker.

Grant: I wanted to get back kind of into your personal history, early days, again too. Go back to those topics. You know, you started out as a, you said a petroleum engineer in those early days. What did you do? What is the work of a petroleum engineer?

Stash: Well, a couple different aspects. What I specifically did, which was really unusual for women at the time and even now, I was on the drilling side. So they're the guys that put the holes on the ground essentially. And I was purposeful in that because in order to have, well, and to give just context, 200 petroleum engineers in 981 at the Colorado School of Mines, three women, and by the way, two of us were in the top five. Okay. So you either went big or you went home if you're female at the time. And I decided to do drilling engineering because it was the most equipment guy oriented part of the business. So I thought in order to have the credibility I would need, having been a drilling engineer was a good thing.

And even now, I mean, I'll tell you as recently as a year ago, out on the floating production storage unit and rig out in the middle of the, right offshore of Ghana and I was the only woman on the rig, so things, some things haven't changed. Although I was an executive vice president, but I still have a presence. I mean, I know how to be around equipment. I know how to be with the people that are working there. I understand what they're going through. So it was purposeful and it served me well. So yeah, so I drill holes in the ground and a lot of that too, because I did a lot of it in the Rocky Mountain West again, and environmentally and socially sensitive lands. A lot of it too was that interface with, you know, because you know the community and you know et cetera. So there was a big aspect of that too.

Grant: Did you enjoy that work?

[01:34:14]

Stash: Yeah, I mean you know, actually it's a funny thing and it goes back to your what's fun about being with a corporation or whatever. And again, I'll tell a more recent story. You just have these moments in your career where you're in a helicopter flying into remote Papua, New Guinea. I mean, who gets to do that stuff and get paid for it? Or you know, and I've worked in 40 different countries in very different - so I think the appeal of that is it, and the same thing, I think miners will tell you, should you decide to do that with your life, it can just be flipping amazing. I'm sure it's the same thing if you were like a wildlife photographer or something, just the opportunity to have experiences that people would pay a lot of money to have and you're getting paid to do it.

So yeah, I've been very lucky. Like my father said, "You make your own luck." I mean, I'm sure I took some chances other people wouldn't take to create some of those opportunities for me, but for myself, I should say. But yeah, it's been pretty fun.

Grant: Well, my next question actually was about your father, because I don't think we heard a word about him so far. So what was he like? What was his name?

Stash: Oh, my father's Thomas Stash and he was a coal mining kid who was not much of a student, who by the time he was 30 actually got a mechanical engineering degree and actually interesting, I saw him not long ago, because mentioned my mom passed away a few months ago, so we're sort of on project dad now. And he even relayed to me how and I didn't really appreciate what a disadvantaged background he came from and really how remarkable it was. And he was an engineer with IBM and I think maybe influenced me a little bit.  He would've much rather have been a pipeline builder or working on the north slope of Alaska or something a little bit more akin to what I did. But I think at 30, when you finish college at 30 and you've got two kids and a third one on the way, I think he made some compromises for us, but he's had a very speaking, pretty interesting life. He and my mom - let's just say not many 80 year olds become honorary members of the Cree tribe up in Naskapi, Quebec or go dog sledding north of the Arctic Circle. But my parents have availed himself to some interesting things too. So, but thank you for asking.

Grant: Well, yeah. Is he strict? Is he kind?

Stash: Oh, oh. Very kind. But no. Yeah. Let's say that my myself and my three younger sisters, we didn't get away with much four girls. Oh yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah, Yeah. We didn't get away with much. And actually my father would've, in fact, we're really glad we never had a brother because had we had a brother, I'm sure all the fun fishing, camping kind of stuff. Oh just a quick story of my dad, because, again, it influenced my life. We were kids, I was the eldest and I was probably about 14 and some, my youngest sister would've been eight. And we helped out a couple of geologists in northern, Quebec. We were like way, like way north. And anyway, long and short, we helped them out a couple times. They had some car problems and it was sort of, what can I do for you? What can I do for you to thank you? And my dad said well take the girls up to your mining camp.

First time, first airplane I was ever on. So anyway, the four of us pile into the airplane with these two geologists and a pilot, and we fly in northern Quebec, up above the tree line anyways, so obviously when I got older, I said, Dad, did it ever cross your mind? And he said, "Yeah, the minute the plane took off like, what am I doing? I'm sending my four daughters up with two guys that I don't know from Sam Hill who ostensibly are geologist in an airplane in northern Quebec to go to a man camp." And that's what we call 'em now. And, of course, I spent a lot of my career on man camp. So I sort of understand the dynamic. But yay for him because I mean, just the fact that what was more important for us was to have that sort of, Oh my God, who gets to do this kind of experience in lieu of whatever the risks involved, which in hindsight were numerous.

Jaap: Yeah, I love that.

Stash: Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, so good sense of adventure, but yes, very strict

Grant: And what about your mother? You had mentioned her just briefly.

[01:38:44]

Stash: Yeah. Tough time. Yeah. She was a teacher by training but although she, in typical 1960s fashion, dedicated herself completely to us, but she was smarter than heck. And I will say I said this actually when she passed away two months ago, that everything I am is because of my mom, you know? And she was strict, but it was interesting, but really inspired learning. And you know, I just, in fact, it's funny, I shared this with my sisters. Because I was a very good student and just moments where you, it was probably about third grade. I wasn't doing it for my mom, I was doing it for me. And I think my sisters would all say the same thing, that sort of, and my sisters are all very successful. And you know, one actually works a bit with what's going on with Covid.

She's with Walter Reed, a demographer by training. Another one was kind of a CEO of a bunch of startups. Another one did some work both in environment, social governance, but a marketing manager. And again, for the error you know, probably, and that's because of my mom just but yeah, it was you know, and, and again, I think her. It's also why I'm very, very pro-immigration. But my parents were, both their parents were either born in Europe or came as babies so there was a little bit of that immigrant drive toward, you know, which is that sort of you think about it. Pretty remarkable. My grandfather's barely spoke English and worked in coal mines and little bit of other odd jobs. My grandmother cleaned houses. One was worked in a sewing factory and the fact that both my parents actually did go to college and then and you know, skipping over my generation. But what I look at what the next generation's doing, I would say a great story, but I think it's a pretty typical story for why I'm so pro-immigration.

Jaap: You must have found home fairly quickly here then because I mean, I feel like the story you're telling, if you swapped out coal with copper, you have what so many people here share. So were you able to kind of feel at ease pretty quickly here?

Stash: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, it was really, just by talking about a weird coincidence. I had flown here two summers ago from London and my parents had a little camper. In fact, my dad's going to do it this summer. I knew they were about somewhere within a thousand miles no cell phone, whatever. I knew they'd left Seattle, whatever. Long and short, I mean, this is like a one in a gazillion chance. I'm literally going to the Meat Block to pick up some steaks to take back to London. Don't even ask. I run into my parents in the parking lot at the Meat Block in Butte. No idea that either, neither of us know we're here. And so anyway, said, "Okay, God, this was meant to be you guys." And they wound up following me up to Whitefish. I just bought the house up there.

In fact, I wasn't even fully moved in. I think we were sleeping in sleeping bags or whatever. But I remember my mom at the time saying, I think, I'm afraid this is going to be the last time, I'm in Butte. My parents absolutely love Butte and sadly as I was driving in yesterday, I thought, "Crap, that was the last time mom was in Butte." Yeah. You know, because I mean, I think her in particular just somehow just absolutely connected with community. I mean, it was funny because they'd come visit me when I lived here almost 14 years and hell, they'd stop at the pasty shop first. And I mean you know they'd kind of show up after they'd done all their Butte stuff and then even when I was living in Canada and the UK or whatever they'd always come to Butte and they had friends here. Yeah. So you're right. I think there was a little bit of a, there is very definitely a parallel.

Grant: That does it for my questions.

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