Braxton Taylor
In early September, the US Forest Service released a draft decision notice that would allow for the recommissioning of an old mine site at the headwaters of the South Fork Salmon River in central Idaho. The Stibnite Mine, as Perpetua Resources has named it, would be the largest antimony producer in the country (antimony is used in lead-acid batteries and flame retardants), and potentially one of the top ten producing gold deposits as well.
The mine site, bordering the Frank Church Wilderness, would require huge infrastructure developments, including haul roads, access roads, and power transmission lines, in an extremely remote area of Idaho. The nearest town, Cascade, is located about 68 miles southwest, almost entirely on dirt roads. Overall, the project would cost $1.3 billion and take three years to build, and it would have an active mining lifespan of 15 years.
A number of conservation groups, however, have expressed concern that the mine could be detrimental to the ecosystem and that the decision notice has largely ignored public comments.
“This decision is a grave disservice to the hundreds of people who voiced concerns about the cyanide vat leach mine, and it appears that the Forest Service has not made any substantive changes to the project,” said John Robison of the Idaho Conservation League in a press release. “The plan still involves excavating three massive open pits, punching in a road through three roadless areas and along the boundary of the Frank Church Wilderness, and filling Meadow Creek with toxic mine waste.”
The Frank Church is widely regarded as one of the most intact sections of salmon-spawning habitat in the Lower 48, with the South Fork watershed being particularly special. According to the Forest Service, the area “contains the most important remaining habitat for summer chinook salmon in the Columbia River basin.”
Unfortunately, mining and salmon don’t coexist well, and one needn’t look far for evidence. The nearby Yankee Fork tributary to the Salmon River was decimated by gold dredging in the mid-1900s; Panther Creek (another tributary to the Salmon) was devoid of fish and macroinvertebrate life for 20 years; and the proposed mining area itself was actually home to an abandoned mine that for years has leached heavy metals into the East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon. Still, Perpetua Resources claims that their proposed mine will actually help local salmon and native bull trout populations by improving and reconnecting previously damaged habitats.
Currently, the Stibnite site contains an old, abandoned mine pit filled with contaminated water. Mining activities in the area started in 1899 and continued on-and-off for about a century. When mining ceased, there were very few reclamation efforts, and a lot of the old equipment was abandoned on the site. The East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon now flows through the old mining pit, which has blocked fish passage for nearly 80 years. As part of their new plans, Perpetua will backfill the pit and divert the river around the site in a long tunnel, thereby “improving habitat connectivity” and restoring fish passage to the upper reaches of the river.
Opponents of the mine, though, point out that other environmental costs to the area outweigh those benefits. “We are particularly concerned about increased water temperatures in watersheds that are home to Endangered Species Act-protected salmon, steelhead, and bull trout,” said Nick Kunath, Conservation Director at Idaho Rivers United. “We know that stream flows in the East Fork of the South Fork watershed will be reduced by up to 30 percent, and the removal of riparian shading will increase predicted stream temperatures by up to 6.6 degrees Celsius for up to 100 years.”
Overall, it’s a similar story to what plays out any time a resource extraction project is planned in salmon habitat—be that mining in Alaska or logging on the Oregon coast. Recently, the tables have been turning increasingly toward salmon, as witnessed by the Pebble controversy in Bristol Bay, Alaska, where a huge open-pit mine was vetoed by the Environmental Protection Agency, and a recent slew of dam removals, including four on the Klamath just wrapping up this month.
The Payette National Forest, however, appears to be pushing the Stibnite Mine through, including the addition of five amendments to the current Payette National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan to make way for the mine and associated infrastructure development.
Following the draft decision notice, the project is now open for a 45-day objection period (open only to those who have previously submitted comments on the project), after which a final decision will be made.
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