Heildelberg Mine, Upper Rock Creek
In response to the 2009 release of the Draft
Environmental Impact Statement for the Montanore Project, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency identified several critical shortcomings in the mine
proposal’s water usage plans.
The small amount of water left in natural streams after…larger-scale water diversion may appear to be sufficient initially, but may over time be insufficient to keep the former aquatic ecosystem intact
In a letter dated June 29, 2009 EPA Acting Regional Administrator Carol Rushin states, “The DEIS contains insufficient information to assure that beneficial uses of surface and ground water will be protected. Groundwater drawdown due to mine inflows and pumping may result in lake dewatering and reduction of stream base flow negatively impacting water quality.”(Public Comments from DEIS of March, 2009)
As a direct result of EPA’s opinion, agency officials from Kootenai National Forest, Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Mines Management, Inc. contractors produced a Supplemental DEIS -- more than two years in the making -- that was released to the public last month. This supplement describes plans to permanently degrade natural water resources within public and private lands in Lincoln County.
The water analysis area, as described in the SDEIS, is an approximately 500 square mile region centered in the Kootenai National Forest, with the eastern boundary being U.S. Highway 2, the western and southwestern boundaries being the Bull and Clark Fork rivers, Big Cherry Creek to the north, and the Silver Butte Fisher River to the southeast.
In Mine Alternative 3, identified by the EPA as the least invasive of Montanore’s proposed scenarios and thus the agencies’ currently preferred plan, the “drawdown” of groundwater levels would consistently escalate throughout the project’s construction, operation and post-closure phases. It would take 1,150 to 1,300 years for partial recovery to pre-mine groundwater levels. (p. 239 SDEIS Vol.1)
By the end of mining operations, Montanore’s consumption of groundwater would result in an estimated drawdown of between 500 and 1,000 feet near the adits, while in the Rock Creek region upstream of Rock Lake, located in the federally protected Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, the groundwater level would be up to 500 feet lower than before the mine opened. (p. 240)
During the mine closure and post-closure phases, according to the SDEIS, Rock Creek, the East Fork Rock Creek, and the East Fork Bull River, all located within Wilderness boundaries, would experience a 100 percent water deficit; in other words, these waterways would go dry. (see Tables 87-88, p. 246-247 SDEIS Vol. 1) Because Rock Creek is the sole tributary for Rock Lake, and because the above-mentioned 500-foot drawdown in the water table in this area is below the depth of the lake, Rock Lake would almost certainly be completely drained. (see also page 250, SDEIS Vol. 1)
Why would water level losses continue for more than 1,000 years after Montanore seals its adits? Primarily, this would be due to ground and surface water filling a vacuum: that is, the huge void in the heart of the Cabinets hollowed by Mines Management, Inc. in its quest for precious metals. (p. 257, SDEIS Vol.1)
Once this void was filled, a process which the SDEIS estimates could take around 500 years, the regional water table and surface streams would require over 500 additional years to refill. However, according to the document, “the consumptive use of groundwater by the project would unavoidably reduce the total water yield of this area.” (p. 257)
Because water is a critical life source for the Cabinet Mountains ecosystem, the effects of Montanore “dewatering” would be devastating. According to a recent scientific study on the changes wrought in ecosystems by water development, “the small amount of water left in natural streams after…larger-scale water diversion may appear to be sufficient initially, but may over time be insufficient to keep the former aquatic ecosystem intact.”
Vegetation, trout, and other aquatic life would die as water levels dropped. In particular, threatened bull trout would lose their spawning grounds in the East Fork Bull River, compromising the population’s ability to reproduce. An estimated water drawdown of up to 22 percent in Libby Creek (see table 86, page 242 SDEIS Vol. 1) by the end of mining operations would reduce the fish population, reducing recreational fishing in the area. Mammal populations, especially those threatened species in the KNF and CMW that rely on these water sources, would likewise suffer.
But even this kind of super-consumption of water would possibly not be enough for the Montanore operation. The SDEIS predicts that water demand for processing ore may require drilling auxiliary wells to supply up to 150 gallons per minute of “make-up water.” This amounts to an additional water consumption of 216,000 gallons per day coming straight out of the water table. (p. 239 SDEIS Vol. 1)
Consumption of fresh water resources in protected lands is only the beginning Montanore’s proposed legacy in Lincoln County. The SDEIS also details degradation of waterways from a variety of pollutants, elimination of natural wetlands, destruction of threatened species habitats, and permanent degradation of recreational and sacred tribal areas.
The SDEIS for the Montanore Mine Project describes several ways in which pollutants may enter the natural ground and surface waters of the Kootenai National Forest and the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. Aside from the project’s overwhelming consumption of this precious natural resource, waste water that the operation plans to return to the ecosystem, as outlined in the SDEIS, would clearly degrade water quality and thus its ability to sustain life.
Sending treated sanitary wastes to the tailings impoundment would not have a measurable effect on surface or groundwater quality.” (p. 336, SDEIS, Vol. 1)
As stated in the document, “elevated antimony and manganese concentrations are predicted to occur in groundwater beneath and downgradient of the tailings impoundment,” and that “existing groundwater quality would be altered.” (p. 327, SDEIS, Vol. 1)
In mine Alternative 3 -- the Poorman Creek agency-preferred alternative – the levels of antimony would surpass standard health limits by approximately 25 percent, while manganese in the mine wastewater seepage would be around 5 times the standard allowable concentration set by the Board of Environmental Sciences. (see table 108, p. 328 SDEIS Vol I)
Because both substances are toxic, these pollutants pose a health risk to humans and threaten other life in the region. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, long-term exposure to elevated levels of manganese can attack the central nervous system, causing tremors, facial paralysis, and muscle weakness. Exposure to toxic levels of antimony, according to the National Institutes of Health, results in skin eruptions, heart damage, heart failure, and liver damage, while long-term exposure to lower levels of antimony produces symptoms similar to arsenic poisoning.
Seepage of contaminant-laden water from the tailings impoundment not captured by the facility’s underdrain system would be around 25 gallons per minute (p. 327, SDEIS Vol. 1)– 36,000 gallons per day – at the mine’s closure. Contaminant leakage would purportedly decrease to around 17 gpm – 24,480 gallons per day – after ten years’ time, then 5 gpm – 7,200 gallons per day – “in the long term,” according to SDEIS projections, directly into the water table(p. 332)
The laundry list of heavy metal contaminants contained in mining waste water includes arsenic, copper, cadmium, iron, silver, mercury and lead. (p. 309, SDEIS Vol 1)
While Montanore’s drawing-board tailings impoundment system is designed to capture the majority of contaminated water before it can mix with groundwater, the historic performance of other hard rock waste dumps and tailings impoundments tell a different story. A study by the US National Research Council Committee on Hardrock Mining of Federal Lands concludes that nearly all systems of the type described in the Montanore proposal are permeable; in other words, they leak. Additionally, “impacts on water quality, vegetation, and aquatic biota often extend beyond the immediate area of the mine site.”
Another
toxic substance that the Montanore proposal would release into the ground
water, according to the SDEIS, is
polyacrylamide, a hydrogel used in mining operations to thicken the waste ore
slurry that is headed for a tailings pond. Due to the large volume of tailings
generated in a mining facility, the amount of thickener required would be
substantial. When this chemical is first added to waste water at a milling
site, it is pH-neutral and non-toxic substance.
However, after about 5 years of decomposition in a tailings impoundment,
the chemical structure of polyacrylamide breaks down, releasing acrylamide in
the process, a deadly poison and cancer-causing agent. Humans, fish, and
mammals can inhale acrylamide or intake the toxin through the skin. The
chemical is water soluble, meaning it can easily disperse within a watershed.
According to the SDEIS, the laundry list of heavy metal contaminants contained in mining waste water includes arsenic, copper, cadmium, iron, silver, mercury and lead. (p. 309, SDEIS Vol 1) Levels of nitrate and ammonia concentrations from rock blasting “would be elevated” in waste water. (p. 317, SDEIS, Vol. 1)
Besides the significant water contamination from ore processing described above, the SDEIS outlines Montanore’s plan to further pollute the natural waters of the region with the treated sewage effluent from human waste. (p. 50-54, SDEIS, Vol. 1) The SDEIS predicts that workers would generate about 7,000 gallons of raw sewage per day, which it proposes to treat to “reduce the number of microorganisms” prior to depositing the effluent in permeable tailings ponds. (p. 336, SDEIS, Vol. 1)
However, in the words of the SDEIS, “sending treated sanitary wastes to the tailings impoundment would not have a measurable effect on surface or groundwater quality.” (p. 336, SDEIS, Vol. 1)
Key Components of the Montanore Mine Proposal Promise a Thirst for Resources
The most recent SDEIS document detailing Montanore Minerals
Corp.’s proposal for operating a hard rock mine 18
miles southeast of Libby describes
a laundry list of consumptive and environmentally unsafe measures that threaten
the survival of existing ecosystems.
The vast majority of mining activities, as outlined in this latest Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact statement (SDEIS) from Mines Management Inc. of Spokane, Wash., would take place in areas either set aside as National Forest or federally protected Cabinet Mountains Wilderness lands, causing permanent downgrades in these areas that will adversely affect recreational and residential use.
Some of these measures, as outlined in the SDEIS, include:
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Power Lines Increase Risk of Forest Fires, continued from home page
A year earlier, the San Diego Gas and Electric Company settled with the state of California in a damage agreement of $14.8 million to compensate for three fires attributed to the utility company's power lines. Poor maintenance of the lines led to devastating forest fires in Witch Creek, Guejito, and Rice Canyon, which devastated over 1,300 homes and caused the deaths of two Californians.
Just up the road a piece, the city of San Francisco agreed to pay a $7 million damage settlement to the U.S. government for two fires caused by tree limbs hitting high-voltage power lines near Yosemite National Park. The two fires consumed 5,698 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest, which, lest anyone forget, constitute publicly-owned land.
For those who think it couldn't happen in Montana, consider the strange tale of a 2009 incident in the northwest Montana town of Eureka. A tree fell on a power line. During the several weeks before the line actually stopped functioning, alerting the electric company there was a problem, five whitetail deer, four black bears, two wolves, a coyote and a turkey vulture succumbed to electrocution.
The moral of the story? Permitting Montanore Mine Corp. to string up their high-voltage lines from Highway 2 through the Miller Creek wilderness area, past the Howard Lake recreational area, and across Libby Creek will significantly raise the risk of wildfire in the Kootenai National Forest -- yep, publicly-owned land. Smokey might as well set out cans of gasoline and matchboxes along Miller Creek Road.
What do we Montanans get as compensation for this risk? Unsightly power poles, buzzing power lines, the health risks of electromagnetic radiation, loss of Canada lynx habitat, loss of grizzly bear habitat, and added sediment in mountain creeks to further endanger bull trout.
