EARTHWORKS

Cabinet Mountains Wilderness

United States | Montana | Montanore Mine

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The EIS predicts a permanent reduction in flows in popular Rock Lake (pictured here) – a designated Outstanding Natural Resource Water. The ore is directly underneath the lake.

The Montanore Mine is an underground copper/silver project proposed adjacent to and underneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in northwest Montana.  Similar to the proposed Rock Creek Mine -- Montanore would blast miles of tunnels beneath the mountains, meadows, and alpine lakes of the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area.

The Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area was one of the nation’s first wilderness areas to receive protection.  Today, this 93,000 acre gem remains the sole wilderness area in the 2.2 million-acre Kootenai National Forest.  It supports:

If the mine is approved, it will have lasting impacts on water, wildlife and wilderness.

Dewatering Wilderness Lakes and Streams

To keep underground tunnels dry during mining, the water table would be lowered 10 to 1,000 feet throughout a large area of the Wilderness Area. As this map shows, groundwater dependent rivers and lakes in the Wilderness would suffer the consequences -- some would be permanently diminshed.

Bull trout in shallows. Photo: Clark Fork Coalition
Photo: Clark Fork Coalition

Harming Bull Trout

The East Fork of Bull River and Rock Creek are the two most important recovery areas for threatened bull trout in the lower Clark Fork River watershed. The reduction of flow in these streams will be particularly harmful for bull trout, which rely on these cold, clear streams for spawning.

"Because the East Fork Bull River is considered the most important bull trout stream in the lower Clark Fork River drainage, decreased levels of bull trout spawning within this stream could have long-term adverse effects on bull trout population within the lower Clark Fork River Drainage.” -- Page 146 of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

Threatening Grizzly Bears

The Cabinet Yaak grizzly bear population is already hanging on by a thread. Between 1,531 and 1,887 acres of grizzly bear habitat will be destroyed during mining.


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