To move a mountain

The timing was ironic and largely unnoticed, but it was indeed interesting to note that at the same time the Montana State Legislature was meeting in Helena to fix a US$50-million hole in the state budget caused by a sluggish economy and declining tax revenue, a district judge and state agency were working to kill any hope of expanding the local economy and increasing tax revenue to the state.

The state will reportedly face a deficit of more than US$200 million for the coming biennium, and by the end of that biennium the economic benefits, taxes and community contributions made by the Golden Sunlight mine could be gone.

Gone not because the gold ran out or because of financial reasons or because the company rejected continued investment in Montana.

Gone because environmental groups and a district judge have made it absolutely clear that the mine, the jobs it creates and the benefits it generates are not wanted in this state.

Gone because at a time when Montana desperately needs expanded employment opportunity and economic stability, a district judge and a state environmental agency are insisting that a mountain literally be moved to create 235 acres of wildlife and livestock grazing.

Gone because what environmental groups want is more important than actual environmental quality.

Montana District Judge Thomas Honzel, in the First Judicial District Court in Helena, issued a ruling in late June ordering the operators of the Golden Sunlight mine to backfill the open pit. Golden Sunlight contends that backfilling the pit is a mistake, and is considering several options, including appealing the Honzel decision or possibly suing the state. Golden Sunlight Mine (GSM) officials also say that because of efficiencies in operating the pit and climbing gold prices, the pit expansion discussed for the past five years or so is becoming temptingly feasible. But those same officals say that if the goal of the state is to ensure that the open pit be filled, it makes no sense for the company to pay to make the pit bigger.

The pit expansion, if approved by GSM’s parent company, Placer Dome, would keep the mine open an additional three or four years, employ about 150 people during that time period, and generate millions of dollars of revenue for the local economy and school districts, as well as the local, county and state levels of government.

How much revenue? In 2001, GSM produced 195,000 oz. gold. That same year, the company paid US$5.4 million in payroll. It paid US$1.7 million in fringe benefits. It paid US$401,000 in property taxes. It paid US$503,000 in gross proceeds taxes. It paid US$842,000 in state metal mines taxes. And it paid US$1.3 million in federal and state income taxes.

The company also helped build the addition to the Whitehall Community Library and helped fund both the Jefferson Valley Community Foundation and the Whitehall Chamber of Commerce.

Clearly, for the state of Montana to turn its back on millions of dollars of revenue potentially generated by GSM, the environmental risk of not backfilling the pit must be severe. If the pit is not backfilled, there must be the risk of significant harm to air and water quality. There must be environmental benefits commensurate with the economic loss that justifies the pit backfill.

Yet this is not the case. Here is the reason the pit must be partially backfilled and the potential GSM expansion plans will be eliminated: the pit would look better, and 235 acres of wildlife and livestock grazing would be created.

That’s no joke. Those are the reasons.

Standing above the Jefferson and Boulder valleys, the GSM mine site is surrounded by an ocean of wildlife and grazing habitat. Pre-mining, the site was at best marginal for grazing. GSM has spent US$12 million over the past few years reclaiming lands adjacent to its pit, and if you walk on that reclaimed land right now, you’ll see wildlife. To backfill the pit, that reclaimed land would have to be, according to GSM, torn up and hauled back into the pit. Can that possibly make sense? Only to Judge Honzel, Montana environmental groups and, apparently, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Nowhere else in America would such a ruling even be considered, let alone ordered. Montana stands alone in that regard, which is one reason why Montana stands at the bottom of the American economy.

Judge Honzel, in his order, writes only that the DEQ stated in 1998 that backfilling the pit meant “more comprehensive reclamation.” In the 1998 environmental impact statement prepared by DEQ, the department admits that backfilling the pit would lead to “negligible” environmental benefits. The “more comprehensive reclamation” in the EIS means that the side walls of the pit would be less visible and the bottom of the pit would be improved for wildlife and livestock grazing.

It is incomprehensible madness. It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. It would be unbelievably ludicrous if it happened in another state, but it is tragically close to business as usual in Montana.

Montana has tough environmental laws, and for a good reason. We want our air, water, wildlife habitat, and general environment protected. We live in a beautiful place, and we want to keep it that way. Golden Sunlight has had a few bumps in the road, but it has successfully operated within state and federal laws and rules; it has prepared a reclamation plan and complied with a US$54-million reclamation bond requirement.

But the pit backfill has nothing to do with environmental quality. Filling the pit is not a way to improve the water or air quality at the mine.

But backfilling the pit is a way to eliminate mining in Montana.

No company will ever dig another open pit gold mine if the pit has to be filled, and filled for no environmental reason. GSM estimates it will cost somewhere in excess of US$20 million to backfill the pit, and GSM says that if the pit is backfilled, it would be more difficult, more expensive and less effective for the company to manage water quality and acid rock drainage. Wouldn’t it make sense for the reclamation plan to contain provisions that make the water quality more easily and effectively managed?

At a time when Montana is attempting to improve its business climate, create jobs and improve the stalled state economy, requiring GSM to backfill the pit sends the following message to every corporation and business in the world: You’d have to be an idiot to re-locate your business and try to create jobs in Montana.

Golden Sunlight operated for 20 years with a reclamation plan. It operated 20 years with a reclamation bond. Now a judge and a state agency insist that the plan and bond are not good enough. That’s just plain unfair. If the mandate to fill the pit would have been required by the state in 1982, when the mine opened, the mine simply would never have existed. There never would have been a Golden Sunlight mine. There would not have been US$170 million paid in wages to area employees and nearly US$45 million paid in fringe benefits. There would not have been more than US$9.2 million paid in property taxes, US$11 million paid in gross proceeds taxes, US$12 million in state metal mines taxes or US$34 million paid in state and federal income taxes. More than 2.2 million oz. of a valuable raw product needed for international commerce would not have been produced. And for more than two decades, hundreds of jobs for families in the Jefferson Valley area would not have been created. All this, plus the tangible benefits of GSM’s generosity to the area, would have been lost. Why? For 235 acres of wildlife and grazing land at a place where there was only marginal wildlife and grazing land.

It doesn’t make sense. The Montana Legislature attempted, in good faith, to modify the Metal Mines Reclamation Act to ensure that nonsense like pit-backfilling would be required only if it produced clear environmental benefits. Judge Honzel rejected that legislative attempt. He has ordered the DEQ to require pit backfilling at Golden Sunlight, and DEQ has apparently, though possibly reluctantly, decided to compl
y with the judge’s order.

Golden Sunlight will be meeting with DEQ and Martz Administration officials on August 21, and hopes to open the eyes of the Martz Administration to the ramifications of the backfill order.

In a battle — and make no mistake, this is an economic battle — you’re never sure where to draw the lines of engagement. Well, this is the place, this is the issue, and this is the time. If the Golden Sunlight mine is required to backfill the pit and do so for no apparent reason, we will have lost, Montana’s economy will have lost, and we will have surrendered our future to the violence of environmental greed.

— Glenn Marx is the editor and publisher of Whitehall Ledger , based in Whitehall, Mont. This commentary first appeared as an editorial in the Aug. 21 issue of that publication.