So, I'm looking at Montana, kind of eyeing the state (like Most Californians do on a regular basis as we plan our invasion) long story short, I notice Butte has this enormous quarry next to it.. Turns out it's called the "Berkeley Pit". I'm thinking: "that's pretty cool, I'm going to check it out."
Well, turns out it's really huge, and above it is something called: The Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond.. What a name for a tailings pond!
So it turns out it cost $2 to look into the giant toxic hole in the ground. So, after you look into the hole, you see this huge reddish-brown (copper looking) lake, and a big quarry, and that water is so full of toxic metals etc. that they had to build a water treatment plant so it doesn't get too high and poison everybody in Butte and the entire watershed below, which is the biggest one in Montana.
Anyway, somehow this lake got so toxic that these bacteria that have morphed into toxic-avenger type organisms and are evolving like nowhere else on Earth, attempting to survive in the lake, and some of them are so immune to toxicity that they're supposedly showing some hope for finding a cure to cancer.
Check it out:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscur ... _anti.html
So, it just goes to show, out of the darkness, there is light, every cloud has a silver lining
