EDITORIAL PAGE — A misguided effort

It has not been an easy summer for Crown Butte Mines, which has worked for more than three years with federal and state agencies in an effort to complete the environmental impact statement (EIS) for its New World gold project in Montana.

The company has applied for permits to build a 1,200-to-1,500-ton-per-day mine that would produce about 130,000 oz. gold each year. But because the project is situated near Yellowstone National Park, the proposal has been met with strong opposition by a variety of groups and individuals. It is an emotional issue, analogous, in a Canadian context, to the uproar that would be heard if a company were to announce plans to build a mine near Lake Louise.

In the aftermath of environmental problems at the Summitville mine in Colorado, and more recently at Omai in Guyana, Crown Butte does indeed face a formidable challenge: It must convince its opponents that New World does not threaten Yellowstone Park or the greater Yellowstone eco-system. The company’s proposal is being taken to task by some powerful individuals and sophisticated lobby groups. And Crown Butte is finding that mainstream journalists, for the most part, have neither the intellectual discipline nor the scientific background to look at the project dispassionately. As the old Fleet Street adage goes, “why let the facts stand in the way of a good story?” And therein lies the problem. The New World project is unique in that it has already been mined, intermittently, since the turn of the century. Indeed, past operators drove into Henderson Mountain, stopping a mere 100 ft. from the rich gold deposit that now forms the basis of the mine plan. Much of the development work has already been done. Furthermore, Crown Butte is proposing a cyanide-free flotation process for its underground gold mine, thus preventing the types of problems that occurred at Summitville and Omai.

More importantly, the new mine will pay for the general reclamation of the site through the cleanup of old mine dumps and the backfilling of historic operations. Crown Butte says it will clean up Fisher Creek and bring it back to life. With the help of the agencies involved, 250,000 tons of historic tailings in Soda Butte Creek, which flow into Yellowstone Park, could be placed into a proper containment facility.

To this we can attest: Crown Butte’s commitment to the environmental integrity of the operation is not mere window dressing. Several years ago, The Northern Miner visited the project and was impressed by the quality and quantity of the reclamation work that was taking place on site during the exploration stage. It was, even at that time, one of the most environmentally progressive mineral projects ever advanced in North America.

The mine proposal has been scrutinized more closely than any previous mine proposal received by state and federal agencies. Crown Butte is confident in the EIS process, but has real concerns that this process will be circumvented by groups opposed to the project. An example is the recent visit to the site by the World Heritage Committee, which is floating the idea of a huge buffer zone outside the current park boundaries, where human activity would be discouraged. This is the same committee that threw its weight against another mine proposal, which had the effect of locking up, for posterity, the Windy Craggy deposit in northern British Columbia.