Locals organize to stop Sheep Creek mine

by Michael Howell

“Don’t pollute the ‘Root’ – The signs are springing up around the valley. They are being put in place by a newly formed organization called Bitterroot Clean Water Alliance (BCWA) with a very focused goal – to stop the proposed Sheep Creek Mine, a Rare Earth Element (REE) mine being pursued by a Canadian company on National Forest land in the headwaters of the Bitterroot River.

“We are not against mining,” said Philip Ramsey, one of the founders of the new organization. “We are just against this kind of mining in this kind of place.” Ramsey is a resident of the West Fork and earned a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Montana in 2006 for studies of how heavy metal contamination affects rivers. He has studied the massive Superfund clean-up of the Clark Fork River. He is the lead scientist and general manager of the 16,000-acre MPG Ranch near Florence.

This kind of mining, mining for REEs, is one of the most toxic kinds of mining. Rare-earth metals are a set of elements that have a wide variety of applications, ranging from magnets, lasers, GPS satellites, photoluminescence, computer components, lighting, electronics, cell phone screens, hard drives and weapons guidance systems. However, these elements tend to be dispersed and mixed in with other elements, making extraction and separation expensive, difficult and fraught with environmental risks.

According to an article in the Harvard International Review (HIR), there are two primary methods for REE mining, both of which release toxic chemicals into the environment. The first involves removing topsoil and creating a leaching pond where chemicals are added to the extracted earth to separate metals. The second method involves drilling holes into the ground using polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes and rubber hoses to pump chemicals into the earth, which also creates a leaching pond with similar problems. 

“Both methods produce mountains of toxic waste, with high risk of environmental and health hazards. For every ton of rare earth produced, the mining process yields 13kg of dust, 9,600-12,000 cubic meters of waste gas, 75 cubic meters of wastewater, and one ton of radioactive residue. This stems from the fact that rare earth element ores have metals that, when mixed with leaching pond chemicals, contaminate air, water, and soil. Most worrying is that rare earth ores are often laced with radioactive thorium and uranium, which result in especially detrimental health effects,” states HIR.

According to the Kleiman Center for Energy Policy (KCEP), tailings are particularly problematic in REE mining, because of the significant waste-to-yield ratio. “For every ton of REEs that are produced, there are 2,000 tons of mine tailings, including 1 to 1.4 tons of radioactive waste… Site preparation, access roads, and ancillary facilities lead to direct—and often absolute—destruction of the proximate environment, while pollution from mine processes and storage of residual tailings can lead to widespread chemical imbalances and toxic contamination,” states KCEP. 

U.S. Critical Materials partnering with U.S. Critical Metals, a company that merged in 2022 with Canadian holding company Holly Street Capital, itself a “portfolio company” owned by Vancouver, British Columbia-based Resurgent Capital, own 223 mining claims across seven square miles located along Sheep Creek and Johnson Creek drainages on Bitterroot National Forest land up the West Fork. Both drainages are tributaries to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. At least one mining site is within 200 yards of the river. The companies plan to do both open pit and underground mining at the sites as well as processing ore on site and expect it to be operational in about five years. U.S. Critical Materials states that there’s not enough thorium at Sheep Creek to require permitting from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

However, Ramsey said the ores at Sheep Creek contain iron sulfides and when the material is crushed and exposed to water and air during mining and processing, they become battery acid. “That creates acid rock drainage, which has caused environmental devastation across the West,” said Ramsey. “It happens every time it’s been tried,” he said. “Every mine in Montana has acid drainage, and this would be no different,” he said.

According to a study commissioned by Earth Works and Montana Trout Unlimited of 12 major operating mines in Montana that all began after the implementation of modern federal and state mining regulations in the 1980s, it was found that “90% of those mines resulted in water quality impacts that were not predicted when the mines were permitted.”

At a recent public meeting sponsored by the BCWA, Vicki Watson, a retired University of Montana Environmental Studies Department professor, shook her head in disbelief over the proposal. She fears the public will be left paying for the cleanup if bonds fall short and the companies fall into bankruptcy. “Whatever can go wrong, will,” she said. “When will we ever learn?”

Ramsey said he does not want the fight against the proposed mine to become political. The issue should have nothing to do with a person’s politics but instead should boil down to weighing the risk against the viability of the community’s economy and health. “The risk of mining in an agricultural valley at the headwaters of a highly valued blue-ribbon trout stream is too significant,” said Ramsey.

Another couple of West Fork residents, David and Linda Butler, have signed on to support the BCWA.  Butler said he and his wife lean conservative and libertarian in their politics. “This is an existential issue. If the mine is approved, it will negatively change all our lives for generations to come. Contaminated mine sites require ongoing maintenance and pose risks to the environment and public health forever. What are our grandchildren going to say about us if we let this happen? We must insist that … all of our elected representatives, including state legislators, the governor, and local officials, protect us from this mine. 

“The real beneficiaries of this mine will be urban elites who get subsidies for their fancy electric cars. And yet Tesla has already recognized the economic and environmental costs and has announced they are developing technology that does not require rare earth elements,” he said. 

In fact, even more companies are committing themselves to using exclusively recycled REEs or are attempting to get rid of the need for REEs at all. Renault’s Zoe car used copper windings instead of magnets to avoid REE usage. Similarly, BMW’s fifth generation electric vehicle eliminated REEs. There is also a substantial opportunity for companies to start recycling REEs. For example, Apple’s newest iPhone 12 is made from 98 percent reused REEs. 

Butler said, “When they are successful and the market follows them, the price of rare earth elements will decline. A mine such as the one proposed may be closed and its shell company will declare bankruptcy. Taxpayers will then foot the bill to deal with the environmental problems.”   

The couple stated that there are more issues than health. “The Bitterroot economy is based on agriculture, our fisheries and hunting grounds, recreation, and tourism. The core of this is the Bitterroot watershed. The inevitable environmental problems will negatively affect all of this, along with our health and our quality of life. Do you want to drink, cook with, bathe in, recreate in, and irrigate with polluted water?”

According to the Butlers, pollution, traffic, water quality impacts, and environmental problems will all negatively affect property values. “They will promise jobs and other economic benefits, but you should not trust this promise and in any event, it will pale in comparison to the negative impacts,” he said, “We believe that when the details are considered, most of us will agree that the mine should not be approved. But stopping it will require us all to be vocal and consistent in our opposition.”