Conservation groups and the Fort Belknap Indian Community have joined the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in opposing a mining company's bid to conduct exploration mining in the Little Rocky Mountains with less rigorous environmental review than the agency wants.
Luke Ployhar and Owen Voigt, and their mining company, Blue Arc LLC, are fighting a decision by the DEQ to conduct an environmental impact statement, or EIS, for proposed exploration mining near the Zortman-Landusky Mine site in eastern Montana. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, an EIS is the most comprehensive study of a proposed action and its impacts, particularly impacts that cannot be mitigated.
The Bureau of Land Management on Sept. 9 implemented a 20-year withdrawal of 2,688.13 acres of land from eligibility for new mining claims. The land, outlined in orange on this map, had previously been withdrawn from 2000–2020 to facilitate reclamation and water treatment at the Zortman-Landusky Mine site.
Ployhar appealed the DEQ decision to conduct an EIS to the Board of Environmental Review. In a motion to intervene submitted Friday, the Fort Belknap Indian Community, Montana Environmental Information Center, Earthworks and Montana Trout Unlimited requested to support the DEQ in requiring the more extensive review.
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"There is substantial history establishing the detrimental effects created by previous mining activity in the Little Rockies," Jeffrey Stiffarm, president of the Fort Belknap Indian Community, said in a statement Monday. "Environmental impacts are being felt to this day. The Fort Belknap Indian Community will continue to actively pursue any issues that detrimentally affect the homelands of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine people. This includes supporting the positions of other agencies that understand the need of a comprehensive review of any proposed mining exploration. The Fort Belknap Indian Community will continue to monitor this situation and provide support wherever we can, including providing information regarding cultural and spiritual aspects of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes."
Earlier this summer, the DEQ fined Ployhar, Voigt and Blue Arc $516,567 for what the agency said was illegal exploration mining in the reclamation area without a valid permit. In correspondence with the DEQ regarding the fine, Ployhar denied exploration mining and said that activities on his mining claims were instead related to a tourism facility he planned to construct. The DEQ called the pair's activities a "violation of major gravity that has compromised reclamation work at the site and represents a risk of acid rock drainage."
The Zortman-Landusky site is a cluster of abandoned open-pit and underground gold mines located in the Little Rocky Mountains near the small settlements of Zortman and Landusky, about 66 miles southeast of Havre. The site is just south — and, crucially, upstream of — the Fort Belknap Reservation.
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The site is also a federally designated Superfund cleanup site where the BLM and DEQ have since 1999 spent more than $83.7 million to perform reclamation and implement water treatment, primarily to stem the flow of acid mine drainage into water on the reservation. The mines were permitted by the agencies in 1979 and '81. In 1993, Montana, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Fort Belknap Reservation sued mine operator Pegasus Gold for Clean Water Act violations related to acid mine drainage, which had contaminated surface and groundwater on the reservation.
When the company declared bankruptcy in 1998, reclamation and remediation work fell to the state and federal agencies, which have spent the mines' posted reclamation bond and taxpayer funds to sequester and revegetate multiple cyanide heap leaching sites, waste rock dumps and mine pits. The agencies also established and operate multiple water treatment facilities at the site. Water treatment will need to operate forever.
Acid mine drainage occurs when sulfide-laden rock underground is dug up and exposed to air and water, such as mine tailings and open mine pits created through exploration mining or commercial mining. Once exposed, sulfides react with air and water to form sulfuric acid, which can react with metals in surrounding rock and gets washed into waterways.
Earlier this month, the BLM withdrew 2,688.13 acres of public land in the area from eligibility for new mining claims for 20 years, in an effort to protect reclamation and remediation work in the area. The agency plans to withdraw an additional 912.33 acres. Blue Arc's claims are on private land in the area, and as such are not subject to the withdrawals, but the DEQ has not issued a permit for mining the claims.
