Montana Mines and How We Move Forward

Montana’s history and landscapes are colored with the remains of historical mining. This industry shaped the state we know today, but we have learned from the scars left behind and worked hard to heal them. There are treasured pieces of public land my family hunts that are littered with the remains of small-scale mining. The woods have reclaimed many of these sites, but the creeks and more arid hillsides still show significant impacts. These remnant mines are the result of a few people laboring with hand tools and the strength of their backs. Today, new mines are proposed in this region at a scale and level of sophistication that would leave the miners of old thunderstruck.

The Blue Copper Project west of Helena is currently proposed as a large-scale mineral exploration project, not yet a mine. But the distinction matters less when you consider the scale of what is being proposed. Blue Copper’s expanded exploration plan covers roughly 10,800 acres of federal land and calls for as many as 127 drill pads, extensive road use, new road construction, and drilling operations around the clock for five years.

This is not some insignificant disturbance on an otherwise industrial landscape. It is a proposal in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, in Hunting District 293, a place where the quality of the landscape is itself an important public resource. It is a landscape where people hunt, fish, hike, camp, and simply go into the woods to experience a piece of Montana that remains remarkably intact. The Continental Divide Trail passes through this stretch of forest. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks describes much of the district as forested elk summer range and emphasizes the importance of maintaining habitat and elk security.

People use this country. FWP reports that District 293 averages more than 10,000 elk hunter-days and more than 6,000 deer hunter-days annually — more than 16,000 hunting days each year before counting the many other recreational uses of these public lands.

Those numbers are more than statistics. They represent mornings spent walking ridgelines, studying habitats, following a bird dog, or sitting in stillness.

A project of Blue Copper’s scale would inevitably introduce industrial effects into that experience and into wildlife habitat: new roads and drilling pads fragmenting cover, heavy equipment and round-the-clock activity displacing animals, and potential impacts to streams that support fish and wildlife. The proposal overlaps habitat used by elk and other wildlife and sits in a watershed containing streams already identified as impaired.

The scars of modern industrial-scale mining are not the same as the small-scale scars of the lone miners of the past that the woods could reclaim, albeit slowly and painfully. The scale of a modern project like Blue Copper would alter the landscape we love for many generations to come, maybe permanently beyond recognition. We have already spent generations cleaning up the legacy of mining. We should not confuse the existence of minerals beneath public land with an obligation to disturb everything above them.

Blue Copper is one of several Montana mining projects that the Trump Administration recently granted FAST-41 status, giving it an expedited review timeline. The Forest Service currently only plans to do a surface-level Environmental Assessment, denying the community a meaningful say. Although the comment window closed, we should still push for an Environmental Impact Statement to analyze alternatives, cumulative impacts, and mitigation for a massive five-year industrial exploration project on public lands.

Hannah Nikonow is the president of Hellgate Hunters & Anglers.

Montana Mines and How We Move Forward

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