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Webinar Description:
Butte is representative of many of the challenges facing rural America. Staggering vulnerabilities for a community its size - including poverty (49% of school children are low-income), food insecurity, and poor health (13% of adults suffer from asthma) - are further complicated by disinvestment and environmental degradation on massive scales. At the top of the Columbia River Watershed, Butte’s contaminated sites and limited water resources will be severely impacted by climate change. Elevated rates of serious health issues, and a disparity of residents to bear the increased costs of living with climate disruptions, produce a situation that requires immediate action.
In cooperation with local partners, Montana Technological University and The National Center for Appropriate Technology, the municipality recognized challenges and made a push for resiliency and climate action. Initiated by a vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning report, the steering committee “Resilient Butte” was formed. Led by local landscape architects, this plan utilized the ASLA Climate Action Plan, ICLEI Greenhouse Gas Inventory, and expertise including low-income assistance programs, watershed councils, native wellness center, schools, utility providers, and more.
The city today is the summation of 100 years of socioeconomic and environmental impacts that reverberate across this Superfund community. Once a booming mining town, the city was rife with copper, silver, and gold; giving rise to its moniker as “The Richest Hill on Earth.” Butte’s ore production electrified America, contributing 41% of all copper output in the US and a quarter of the world’s supply in early 1900s. For two decades, a five square mile patch of hillside produced half of the copper necessary for the electrification and modernization of America’s major cities. Butte was recognized as catalysts for the “Electric Age.” This powerful narrative has been utilized by the project team to showcase how the “city that electrified America” is being
called upon once again.
Butte’s unique history and culture, paired with its rural characteristics, required processes which deviated from standard planning steps and provided opportunities for an atypical approach focused on pursuing funding and grant support adjacent to planning. The plan was also able to depoliticize climate conversations in a conservative state - Montana - by making climate change a personal conversation. This approach jump-started the implementation process to act on climate impacts as swiftly as possible. At the date of this submission, the effort has applied for over $100 million in grant funding and has 4 projects funded and being implemented - including solar projects, a drought management plan, a community composting project, and a large project to add trees to disadvantaged neighborhoods.
This project is a call to action and demonstrates that planning efforts are just the beginning of Resilient Butte.
Learning Objectives:
1. How to depoliticize climate conversations
2. Building momentum for implementation
3. Storytelling for community engagement and outreach
Megan Terry
Megan is a licensed Landscape Architect and SITES Accredited Professional in Montana. Much of her philosophy is rooted in a childhood spent in the forests of Montana in a multi-generational logging family, and then as a wildland firefighter throughout the Western US. This background influences her work and understanding of high mountain deserts, the impacts of climate on the land, and the influence of humans in nature.
Megan’s focus is on resilient, long-term solutions that address regional and local challenges, as well as considerations for the people and animals that call these places home. Megan has experiences that ranges from large remediation and reclamation projects like the Silver Bow Creek Conservation Area to planning documents like Climate Action Plans that are based in implementable actions.
Megan holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Idaho and studied abroad in Italy and Germany. She currently serves on the Executive Committee as the Montana Vice President for the Idaho-Montana chapter of ASLA and volunteers on several community boards including the municipal ADA committee and the Center for Performing Arts. As a foster parent and reunification proponent, Megan believes that landscape architects hold a unique position to advocate for those whose voices are often not heard, and to convey the impacts of the built environment on social connection and belonging within our communities.
