![]() Slag piles and dredge ponds remain in portions of the Ninemile district – a relic of the mining that took place a century ago. “We requested that further work is needed to better include public comment and review.” “We sent a letter in during the comment period and stated we had significant concerns about the project,” said Kylie Paul, the natural resources specialist for Missoula County, which has been a partner in the cleanup efforts. Given Montana's history, reclamation bonding for mining and exploration work is often not enough to reclaim the sites once the work is finished. Trout Unlimited and its long list of partners have spent several years working to restore the damage caused by similar mining activity in the past, and they have concerns about the new gold exploration project.Īmong them, substantial amounts of water will be needed to process the mining waste, and Little McCormick Creek already runs dry at times due to disturbances from past placer mining. If authorize, the work would likely begin this fall and continue next summer, the application said. ![]() Those rules permit “short term mineral investigation that involve trenching to obtain evidence of mineral investigation.” The Familias Dorados Gold Exploration Project looks to dig up to 20 trenches and process them in two sediment ponds using an excavator. It said a new mine, known as the Familias Dorados Gold Exploration Project, has been proposed for the Little McCormick and Kennedy creek drainages in the Ninemile watershed.Ī preliminary assessment by the Lolo National Forest suggests the exploratory mine may be able to circumvent environmental review through a categorically exclusion under new rules issued by the Trump administration. Parson, the Middle Clark Fork restoration coordinator for Trout Unlimited, was leaving Kennedy Creek that day when he got an email. “We were hoping our mine cleanup did that.” ![]() “I spent the day with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in Kennedy Creek doing some pretty lengthy water quality testing, looking for metals because we were trying to delist Kennedy Creek as a metals listed stream,” said Paul Parson. ![]()
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