| Zusammenfassung: | By 1891 Butte, Montana led the world in copper production, but the future of the mining district required finding a reliable and abundant source of municipal and industrial water. Success is owed to a prominent Annapolis-trained engineer, Eugene Carroll, who transformed a primitive water system delivering 1 million gals. per day into a sophisticated system capable of delivering 17 million gals. per day. Questions about the quality of its water hounded the Butte Water Company in 1891, and continued for the next century. From 1901–1981, with the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in control of the Butte Water Company, the needs of mining took precedence over those of the municipal water user. In 1986, ownership changed hands, three years later the Montana Department of Health & Human Services declared the Butte city water undrinkable, and in 1990 citizens filed a class action lawsuit. In 1992 the new copper company, Montana Resources, Inc., sold the water system to the local government, and four years later the lawsuit settlement provided a $37 million investment to rebuild the extensive water system.
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