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The Montana Mining Experience
and Lessons Learned ?

There are many examples of the hundreds of thousands of active and abandoned mines and mill sites in the American West that have polluted lakes and rivers throughout the region.
Arbitrarily we have chosen those mines in the state of Montana as a case study.

I. The Beginning and End of the Mining Experience.

Montana has been thought to have one of the best pre-development bonding regulations as well as open pit mining reclamation laws in the West. But how good is the regulatory scheme and does it protect the citizens of the state when things go badly for the operating mining company? Read the results in this article written by Environmental Management Bureau, Montana DEQ >>

II. False Promises: Water Quality Predictions Gone Wrong

Large Mines and Water Pollution

Prepared by Earthworks/MPC, December 2004

Water quality impacts from hardrock mines are very difficult to predict. Despite modern technology, government and industry predictions are often wrong, and the long-term environmental and fiscal implications are often severe. Here are some Montana examples of modern mines where the government and industry predicted little or no impact to water quality, yet significant impacts occurred.

-------- Beal Mountain Mine, Montana (gold)

The Beal Mountain Mine located on the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest operated from 1989-1998. When the mine was permitted, the Environmental Analysis concluded that the operation of the mine would have no impacts to water quality, because “there will be no discharge of mine or process water to surface waters.”1 The agencies were wrong. Although the mine ceased operating years ago, it has continued to pollute neighboring streams with cyanide, selenium and copper at levels that harm aquatic life.2 Scientists have also determined that trout in water downstream of the mine are contaminated with harmful amounts of selenium caused by mining activities.3 Warren McCullough, who is responsible for enforcing state mine permit laws for Montana DEQ, told the Montana Standard in July 2003 that the aftermath of the closed Beal Mountain Mine is "not going to be something that we're ever going to be able to walk away from." The State has determined that contaminated runoff from the mine will have to be treated in perpetuity.

-------- Troy Mine, Montana (copper)
The ASARCO Troy Mine located on the Kootenai National Forest operated from 1981 to 1993. The State and Forest Service are requiring the company to develop a new reclamation plan for the mine because “water quality impacts and potential long-term water treatment were not identified in the original Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Troy Mine.”24
Although the mine ceased operating ten years ago, water from the mine adit discharges high levels of copper – a pollutant of particular concern because trout are vulnerable to copper at very low concentrations. In addition, the mine’s owners are being sued by citizens, who allege illegal discharges into nearby creeks and the dumping of industrial and metallurgical waste at the mine site.25

-------- Zortman Landusky, Montana (gold)
Federal and State agencies also predicted no adverse impacts to water quality at the Zortman-Landusky mine, located adjacent to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in north central Montana. Yet, the mine has contaminated ground and surface water with metals and acids from acid mine drainage.
In 1993, the State and the EPA filed suit against the company charging that its waste discharges “present human health risks” and that “the acidity of the discharges would kill fish and aquatic life.” In 1998, the company abandoned the site and filed for bankruptcy, leaving the State with significant reclamation and water treatment costs.26
In 2003, the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes at the Fort Belknap Reservation adjacent to the mine, filed suit for ongoing water quality violations. Nearly every drainage in the Little Rocky Mountains has been contaminated with contaminated runoff from the mine. State and federal authorities have determined that acid runoff from the mine will have to be collected and treated in perpetuity. Since 1999, over a billion gallons of acid runoff have been intercepted.

Zortman Landusky, Montana
Photo by the Indian Law Resource Center