Little Rockies mining exploration draws universal opposition from Fort Belknap

During a public meeting held by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality Tuesday night Fort Belknap officials and community members universally opposed attempts to explore for potential new mining opportunities in the Little Rocky Mountains

The meeting was an effort to gather public comment on a draft environmental assessment for Luke Ployhar’s proposed exploration project in the location of the former Zortman Mine.

Those who spoke at the meeting largely pointed to the damage inflicted on the area in 1980s and ’90s, by Zortman Mining Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pegasus Mining Co.

Pegasus used heap leach mining to extract gold from the area via two open-pit mines totaling about 1,200 acres of land, half public and half private, before going bankrupt in 1997.

The process, which uses chemicals including cyanide to leach minerals like gold from ore, left heavy environmental damage.

The bond posted by Pegasus did not cover the costs, and the state and federal government have spent millions on the cleanup so far with millions more to come in annual water treatment along with reclamation.

Further back in history, the federal government coerced the Fort Belknap tribes in the 1890s to sell the land, part of the original Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, back to the government after gold was discovered there.

This history of exploitation was cited by many at Tuesday’s meeting as a reason for their opposition to new ming operations.

Ployhar has argued that the mining techniques his company would employ are different and would not cause any significant environmental destruction, but that claim was met with skepticism by those at Tuesday’s meeting.

Questions answered at Tuesday’s meeting

At the meeting, Whitney Bausch of DEQ said the hearing was to discuss the draft of her agency’s environmental assessment of the exploration project, not a full mining operation, which would require its own environmental assessment and public comment period.

Bausch said DEQ is only examining the possible impacts of the exploration itself, not any mining activities that may be developed after that.

She said public comment for this stage of the process is not required under law, but they recognize the sensitive nature of the place being explored, environmentally, historically and culturally, so they determined that it required more public engagement.

She said DEQ would not respond to any comments made at the hearing, but would examine everything said and use it to refine the final environmental review which will include responses to those comments.

After that, Bausch said, DEQ will issue a final bond calculation to ensure that the area will be reclaimed after exploration is complete and that bond must be submitted by Ployhar before an exploration license is issued.

Officials and community members asked DEQ representatives about the estimated impacts of the exploration and Bausch said, based on the review of the project, the trench that will be carved during exploration will stop 675 feet above any ground water and is much further away from any surface water.

She said anti-erosion measures would be set up to make sure material does not reach that surface water as well, so impacts of the exploration on water should be minimal.

She said it will also have no effects on ongoing water treatment, reclamation or monitoring in the area.

DEQ Mining Bureau Chief Dan Walsh said, due to the small size of the exploration, impacts on air quality are minimal but a full mining operation would be an entirely different story and would require its own examination.

Fort Belknap Indian Community Council Member Dominic Messerly asked if DEQ has assessed potential impacts on cultural resources and archeological sites.

Messerly said he believes that DEQ should not finalize the analysis until it examines such impacts, which should be required under the National Historic Preservation Act, which would also require they consult with the Fort Belknap Historic Preservation Office, as the area is within the ancestral treaty land and the tribes were coerced into giving them up in the 1890s for the sake of mining.

Bausch said DEQ does evaluate cultural resource impacts but they are limited in their authority to address those potential impacts on private land.

Fort Belknap officials objected to the exploration, primarily on the grounds that it’s merely the first step in a process that inevitably leads to full-scale mining.

Fort Belknap Indian Community Council President Jeff Stiffarm thanked DEQ for the opportunity to comment on the matter, but said the tribes still stand is to opposition to any effort to reestablish mining in the area.

He said taxpayers are still footing the bill for what Pegasus left behind and Ployhar and those supporting his efforts are more interested in money than the effects mining has had and could still have on his people’s lives, not just environmentally, but spiritually.

“Luke Ployhar and the people of DEQ don’t live here, but we do,” he said. “We gotta live with everything that happens up here in these mountains.”

Stiffarm also called attention to what he characterized as the suspicious speed with which the exploration license request was made.

Since 2000, the U.S. Department of the Interior had been issuing five-year withdrawals of the federal lands in the region from mining claims, renewing the withdrawals every five years.

In a request for an investigation by the office of the inspector general of the U.S. Interior Department, opponents of the mining noted that Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt signed a notice for a 20-year mineral withdrawal, but on a reduced area, Oct. 1, 2020, and the notice wasn’t published in the federal register until Oct. 7, 2020.

The previous five-year withdrawal expired Oct. 4, 2020, and Blue Arc, owned by Ployhar, filed 10 mining claims in the area Oct. 5, prior to the intended withdrawal being noticed to the public.

Derf Johnson, a staff attorney with the Montana Environmental Information Center also voiced the center’s opposition to the project based on the effect mining has had on the area in the past.

“I don’t think anyone who actually goes and sees that project, or what happened up in the Little Rocky Mountains would be comfortable with more mining,” Johnson said. “The devastation is just jaw dropping.”

He said DEQ’s evaluation of the effects of the this exploration project sound similar to the evaluation of the Pegasus Mine’s Environmental Impact Statement.

He said time and time again with mines, agencies will predict minimal environmental impacts only to see massive environmental damage happen in the aftermath.

“You can certainly change mining techniques, but you can’t change the geochemistry in the area,” he said.

Bonnie Gestring of Earthworks, an organization she said has been promoting reclamation efforts in the area for many years, also voiced opposition to any mining in the area.

She said the resources poured into the area to clean up and reclamation efforts in the aftermath of the Pegasus mine cannot be overestimated and the proposal to resume mining in the area contradicts those decades of effort, and should be rejected on that basis.

She said the environmental assessment of the exploration project is insufficient for a number of reasons which she has submitted to DEQ in writing.

DEQ criticized for lack of communication

Stiffarm also said the tribe was not reached out to and no concern has been shown for the cultural importance of that area and the effect mining will have on it.

The lack communication with Fort Belknap also was criticized by Messerly, who said tax payers are still left hold the bag from the last time mining was done there, and that’s without even getting into the cultural importance of the area.

He said resuming mining in the area could undo decades of reclamation and cleanup efforts, and DEQ needs to do more analysis.

These sentiments were echoed by Council members Steve Fox and Geno LeValdom the latter of whom said no one in the community wants this mine and their wishes are being ignored.

Council Member Derek Azure also spoke in opposition to any new mining.

Many of those that commented, officials and community members, said the tribes should have been consulted about these potential mining ventures sooner under Montana law.

Opposition to to the mining did not come excessively from the Fort Belknap community. Havre resident David Brewer, who said he has history with the area including hunting, also voiced his opposition to the mine and said he feels Fort Belknap is being ignored and disrespected.

He said he understand DEQ has limitations on what they can and can’t do, but they are part of a process that seems to be being rushed for the sake of a project that shouldn’t even be being considered given the history of the area.

“None of us should be here,” he said.

Cultural impacts of mining

Fort Belknap Historic Preservation Office Cultural Liaison Daniel Wood was among the many people who spoke about the cultural significance of the mountains and said the community does not want any more mining there.

“It’s a peaceful area and we want it to stay that way,” he said. “I don’t want to go to one of our peaks to pray for a few days and be alone with the creator for a few days and have to look down on Luke Ployhar mining.”

He said he’s recently gone back to look at documents detailing the objections to ventures like this before and it’s always the same, with the tribes objecting and being ignored over and over again.

“When is enough enough?” he asked. “When are we ever going to just be able to live peacefully out here?”

Fort Belknap Water Quality Coordinator Mitchell Healy also commented on the affects of mining not just environmentally, but culturally and said community is not benefitted by this mine.

“It just makes me think about our history with the mountain, that area where the mines are were our lands at one time, and to see it damaged the way that it was, and now with this project, it’s just mind-boggling to be that something like this could happen again,” he said.

Many more commented Tuesday evening and only one, Shelby DeMars of the Montana Association of Oil, Gas and Coal Counties, voiced support for mining.

She said this meeting is not for a mining permit only for an exploration that will have minimal impacts on the environment.

She said progress has been made both in the mining industry and mine regulation since the days of the Pegasus mine and Montana has very strict rules for mine operation.

She said she hoped DEQ will approve grant the exploration license and that it leads to full mining development.

DeMars also voiced her opposition to any attempt to extend the public comment period.

Public comment on the environmental assessment is still being accepted by DEQ until Jan. 11, but multiple representatives at Tuesday’s meeting said that deadline may be extended if necessary, and people can request an extension to the deadline in their submitted comments.

Comments can be submitted by email to [email protected], or by mail at DEQ Mining Bureau, Whitney Bausch, PO Box 200901, Helena MT, 59620-0901.