A proposed mine beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness that has been a beacon of hope for mining proponents and a source of concern for environmental groups could get a green light from federal officials early this year, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Such approval would clear the way for exploration work to determine how much copper and silver is beneath the surface and if it’s economically viable to open a full-scale mine in the far corner of northwest Montana.
If the Forest Service approves the Libby Exploration Project’s Draft Environmental Assessment and its Plan of Operations, miners could be working in Lincoln County for the first time in more than a decade. That would be a boon for communities like Libby, one of Montana’s most economically depressed areas. Environmental groups, however, are concerned that mining activity could impact aboveground habitat for endangered species, including bull trout and grizzly bears.
The Libby Exploration Project, previously called the Montanore Mine, was initially proposed in the early 1980s, the Montana Free Press reports. Shortly after, a nearly horizontal 14,000-foot exploratory mine shaft (known as an adit) was constructed to reach the copper and silver deposits. By some estimates, there are 500 million ounces of silver and 4 billion pounds of copper beneath the Cabinet Mountains.
Montanore was consecutively owned by a series of small mining companies until 2016, when it was purchased by Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla Mining Co. for $30 million. The previous year, Hecla had purchased Revett Mining Co., which owned the shuttered Troy Mine (a small copper and silver mine south of Troy that operated on and off from 1981 until its permanent closure in 2015) and the proposed Rock Creek Mine in Sanders County.
The acquisition of the Montanore and Rock Creek projects by Hecla was celebrated by local officials in northwest Montana. The thinking went that if anyone could get the mines open, it would be Hecla, which currently has operations in Alaska, Idaho and Quebec.
Watch related coverage: A look into the Libby Exploration Project
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has asked a judge to dismiss its ‘bad actor’ case against the CEO of Hecla Mining Co., which is trying to develop two copper and silver mines in Lincoln County.
That optimism met a roadblock when the state of Montana tried to label Hecla’s former CEO, Phillips S. Baker, a “bad actor” for his involvement in a failed mine cleanup in north-central Montana. Legally designating Baker a “bad actor” would have prevented Hecla from conducting any mining activity in Montana until the state was compensated $32 million for the failed clean-up of three mines owned by Pegasus Gold Corp., where Baker was once an executive. (Baker countered that he was innocent and that he had already left Pegasus before the company went bankrupt). After Gov. Greg Gianforte took office in 2021, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality dropped its effort to blacklist Baker.
Under previous owners, the Montanore and Rock Creek projects had received a patchwork of state and federal approvals to begin exploration. But in February 2022, Hecla withdraw those earlier operation plans and started from scratch, focusing exclusively on Montanore. Hecla maintains ownership of the Rock Creek Mine, but has said it will not seek exploration permits on the project until the Libby Exploration Project moves forward.
“Past permitting efforts were hampered by dated plans of operation and hypothetical mine plans, ultimately leading to legal roadblocks. Those had to be withdrawn so we could pursue a new path forward to unlock the value of these significant copper and silver resources,” wrote Mike Satre, Hecla’s director of governmental affairs, in an email to Montana Free Press.
Hecla’s proposed plan of operation calls for dewatering the existing adit (about 7,000 feet of it is underwater) and extending it another 4,200 feet until it is directly above the mineral resource. The company plans to build an additional 6,300 feet of tunnels to aid in exploration activities. The exploration effort to evaluate the quality of the deposit would occur over the course of 16 years, including the eventual closure of the adit and reclamation of the site. Hecla officials have said that during the construction, exploration and reclamation phases, the company would likely employ 30 to 35 people.
Satre said mine projects like the one south of Libby take, on average, 29 years to locate, permit and construct in the United States. Satre said that while the current political landscape is conducive to mining exploration — the Trump administration has said it wants to increase resource extraction on federal lands — Hecla officials know they won’t be opening a mine any time soon, and that mining is a long game.
An updated draft environmental assessment is expected in the coming weeks and, following an objection and response period in the spring, a final decision could come this summer.
While Hecla officials are optimistic they will eventually be able to operate a mine in Lincoln County, environmental groups continue to raise concerns about the impacts a mine could have on the wilderness above. Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, said his organization and others are worried about destruction of habitat important to grizzly bears and bull trout. In the case of the latter, they worry that mining activity below the surface could result in the dewatering of creeks and ponds above, as well as downstream pollution. He said the Cabinet Mountains are simply not a good place for a mine.
“I think this has been such a tough project to permit because it’s a tough place to put a mine,” he said. “I’m not naive, I understand we need mining to support our modern life, but this is literally underneath a wilderness.”
Commercial demand for copper is expected to rise in the years ahead. Since 2020, the price of copper has increased by nearly 75% as demand for the metal rises among manufacturers of electronics, generators, transformers and equipment necessary to transition from coal and oil to cleaner sources of energy.
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
