Special issue on hardrock mining: Montana has long had a love-hate relationship with hardrock mining, and the prospect of new massive gold mines is bringing all the problems to a boil.
The Quincy Library Group has green credentials
Dear HCN, As an original member of the Quincy Library Group, I was pleased to read an honest treatment of the QLG (HCN, 9/29/97). However, speaking as a forester and environmentalist who has been actively involved in Northern Sierra land management issues since 1975, I take issue with the letters in the Nov. 10 issue.…
A rural county says no to pork
GUNNISON, Colo. – On a brilliant fall day in central Colorado, Federal Highway Administration engineer Mark Taylor offered Gunnison County commissioners $38 million. The money would pay to reroute, widen and pave the road connecting the small town of Buena Vista, pop. 2,141, to the even smaller town of Almont, pop. 300. The 35-mile road…
The Wayward West
For the first time in its history, the U.S. Forest Service admits it has lost money on national forest timber sales. Losses amounted to $14.7 million for fiscal year 1996. The agency says the shortfall comes mostly from rehabilitation projects such as forest thinning and stream restoration, while commercial logging operations continue to profit. Utah…
Dicey future for Northwest casinos
When the Lummi tribe in Washington opened the Northwest’s first casino 13 years ago, gambling became a jackpot, bringing in almost $1 billion a year to the region’s tribes. Then last August the Lummi Casino closed its doors, blaming competition within the state as well as in Canada. Some say other closings will follow. Lummi…
Judge says wolf reintroduction was illegal
Several years ago, the Department of Interior sold its program to reintroduce wolves into Yellowstone and central Idaho by assuring ranchers they could shoot wolves that got into their herds without fear of penalty under the Endangered Species Act. Now, with introduced wolves thriving in both areas, a federal judge has ruled that the agency…
Miners and Montana were too cozy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. During Kevin Keenan’s 24 years as a water-quality enforcer for the state of Montana, he often criticized the agencies for favoring the mining companies. In 1995, he retired because, “I knew my career was over. I was left out of enforcement issues for a…
Can silver be mined safely from under a wilderness?
Note: This news article accompanies this issue’s feature story about hardrock mining. Thanks to President Clinton, you’ve probably heard of the New World Mine that was to be built near Yellowstone. And you may have heard of the proposed McDonald gold mine on the Blackfoot River near Lincoln, Mont. Thank Norman Maclean and his novel…
An 1872 law still calls the shots
WASHINGTON, D.C. – It was a good year. The president was easily re-elected, there was a tight race for the baseball championship, and Congress passed landmark environmental legislation. Some things have changed since then, though. Ulysses Grant is better known for a question about the contents of his tomb than for his accomplishments as president,…
Heard around the West
The driver was a Romanian-born mathematician zooming 96 miles per hour through Montana – a state famous for its disdain of speed limits – and he was royally ticked off when Highway Patrol Officer Silkitwa Rivera pulled him over. Constantin Pirvulescu ranted and screamed, the officer recalled, and kept insisting, “There is no limit. You…
Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the ‘last, best place’
Note: this front-page essay introduces this issue’s feature story. Pity Montana. Everyone wants a piece of it. Most desire its trout streams, the solace of its open spaces, its stunning mountains. Mining companies want the metals buried beneath this incomparable landscape. Hardrock mining is already big business in Montana. But it could soon get bigger.…
The West from a snowmobile: a 50 million-acre theme park
It was fortunate that I could ski faster than my friend Mark Tokarski, because, like a 200-pound mosquito in a red stocking cap, he was pursuing me, belting out this incredibly annoying whining sound: “YEEEEENNNNGGGHHHH.” Foolishly, as we shushed along cross-country trails on the Bitterroot Divide, I had commented what a rare pleasure it was…
Montana on the edge: A fight over gold forces the Treasure State to confront its future
Note: several sidebar articles, including a timeline of the Zortman-Landusky mine and accounts by several stakeholders telling their views in their own words, are available in the “Sidebar” section of this online issue. LINCOLN, Mont. – When you ask Lee Pattison whether she thinks a mammoth gold mine will be built a few miles from…
Dear Friends
Snow time in the Rockies Winter has crept up on us, even though the town of 1,400 where we work boasts “banana belt” status. Avalanche reports take the place of weather or traffic bulletins on KVNF, our public radio station, embellished by personal accounts from disc jockeys. Here are a few of the mishaps that…
Mine wastes haunt a mythic river
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. On paper, the Blackfoot River, which begins at the Continental Divide and flows 132 miles to the west, doesn’t seem poetic. Roads and clear-cuts line its shores. Mining waste runs through its water. In 1975, a tailings dam broke, spilling sludge into the headwaters…
Activists ‘shepherd’ wayward bison
Highway Administration says it’s all or nothing
Gold mines exist in a shaky financial world
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Phelps Dodge sold its share in the McDonald Mine this fall, no one was much surprised. The company had tried to get rid of its 72.5 percent share in 1994, when, after having spent over $42 million, it asked its partner, Denver-based Canyon…
Montana’s army of writers tested the power of the pens
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Writer David James Duncan left Portland for Missoula and promptly became obsessed. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. The author of The River Why and The Brothers K had come to Montana to write his next novel and do some fishing, alongside other…
A gold mine is a city until the ore runs out
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If the McDonald gold mine is built as currently planned, it will resemble a city of eight square miles. It will be thirsty. Each day it will use an average 2.5 million gallons of water, equivalent to 420,000 toilets flushing. It will also be…
Where one sister sees gain, another sees ruin and loss
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If a single family could illustrate Montana’s love-hate relationship with mining, it would be the Garlands, who run Garland’s General Store, along Lincoln’s main strip. Cecil and Barbara Garland established the store in the 1950s, but their daughter Teresa, 44, is in charge now.…
Don’t worry, says the McDonald Mine’s geologist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. KD Feeback, geologist at the McDonald Mine, is not concerned about the hullabaloo over the environmental impact statement, the clean-water initiative or any opposition to the mine. KD Feeback: “If you look at the history of mine permitting, our EIS process is normal for…
Idaho chokes Spokane
Eleven-year old Derek Uphus fears the start of school each year because that’s when local farmers near his Spokane, Wash., home begin burning their fields and fouling the air over the city. He suffers from cystic fibrosis and asthma and when there’s smoke in the air, Uphus coughs constantly. “It’s like someone’s hands are around…
Don’t trust the mining industry, says a retired rancher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Retired rancher Land Lindbergh doesn’t encourage casual visitors. His ranch is in a secluded canyon along the Blackfoot River, protected by four miles of unmarked dirt road and several locked gates. But once you find him, he is so warm that writer David James…
A company that moved mountains runs into a wall
Note: This reporter’s notebook article accompanies this issue’s feature story. HAYS, Mont. – When Bill Halver laughs, he throws his head back and bares the few teeth he has left. He is telling how he, a small-time rancher from a remote eastern Montana town, helped paralyze Pegasus Gold Corp., the state’s most powerful mining company.…
The rise and fall of a gold mining company
Note: This timeline is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. 1855 The Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes move to what will later be known as the Fort Belknap Reservation, named for a U.S. Secretary of War. Late 19th century Pike Landusky and Pete Zortman strike gold in a corner of the reservation. 1895 Threatened…