Sheep Creek mine on government ‘fast track’ list

by Michael Howell

The Sheep Creek mine, a proposed rare earth element mine on claims stretching over 4,500 acres on Bitterroot National Forest land at the headwaters of the West Fork of the Bitterroot River, has been placed on the Federal Permitting Council’s FAST-41 list for “fast track” federal review and permitting. 

The Council was established under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) that was signed into law by President Obama in December 2015. Under “FAST-41”, as it came to be called, federal agencies involved with environmental review and permitting of major infrastructure are directed to work cooperatively under the oversight of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council to improve infrastructure reviews and decisions and to make those actions more transparent to the public through tracking on the infrastructure dashboard (www.permits.performance.gov). 

A list of industry sectors was created that did not include mining as an eligible sector under the FAST Act. But in December 2020, the Permitting Council added mining to the list. The first mine to be placed on the dashboard’s Covered list was the Hermosa mine in Arizona in 2023 during the Biden administration. Since then, several mining projects have been added to the Covered Project list which currently lists 13 mines.

In April 2025, a list of Transparency Projects was adopted. The purpose of the additional list was to “provide public access to their environmental review and authorization schedules, promoting greater accountability and a more efficient process.” Projects in the Transparency Project list appear to be limited to tracking review and permitting timelines with expedited coordination between federal agencies, but do not include the same requirements for environmental review and allowance for state, county and municipal involvement in the process that the FAST Act allows for Covered Projects. Nor does it require an environmental review process of at least 45 days and up to 60 days required for Covered Projects. In the case of the McDermitt Project, which is a Transparency Project, the Department of Interior announced a five-day public comment period. It was extended when the Burns Paiute Tribe submitted a letter of protest and is currently listed as “in progress.”

The Transparency list contains 37 projects with reported status showing six “completed,” 30 “in progress” and one “planned.” The one “planned” project is the Sheep Creek project. A permitting timeline is scheduled to be posted on December 2.

According to the dashboard site, the project sponsor has proposed the Sheep Creek gallium and heavy rare earth element exploration project to include activities to clear and maintain existing roads, secure and stabilize three existing adits, exploratory drilling underground and up to 10 surface boreholes with associated pads, and other ore sampling activities. The latest Notice of Intent filed in April 2025 and good through October did not include any drilling.

US Critical Materials has announced that it was going to start exploratory drilling every year since 2023. They announced last spring that they would begin drilling in September of 2025. But the latest NOI filed in April for the 2025 season did not include any drilling and, so far, no Plan of Operation, required by the Bitterroot National Forest Service’s permitting process, has been submitted.

US Critical Materials has not yet responded to emails or phone calls from the Bitterroot Star concerning the listing.

However, Harvey Kaye, Chairman of Critical Materials, the company based in Salt Lake City that owns the mining claims and is partnering with the Canada-based company Critical Metals to develop the project, did recently sit down with Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, to discuss the Sheep Creek project. (S&P Global October 22, 2025)

“We’re in discussions with private and governmental players to become a principal gallium supplier,” Kaye stated in the interview. “Our game plan is to be able to extract enough, process it, and stand on the White House steps within 60 days and be able to say that in this bag are critical minerals, rare earths, and gallium that are found in America, processed with environmentally friendly technology, and available for the defense of this country and indeed the free world. Mr. President, you can tell the Chinese whatever you want; that’s up to you!”

“We believe that, with a little bit of persistence, permits will come in the near term, enabling us to start bringing some volume production in 2026,” he said.

Kaye claims to be “in discussions with multiple defense and chip manufacturers to book their supplies…” He also claims to be “in discussions with a major US Army base, and we are talking about three things: we’re talking about taking ore from Sheep Creek, putting it on a train and shipping it to this location to build a processing plant on the Army base.”

“We are also in talks with the Defense Logistics Agency to start building storage of critical minerals. We have a strategic oil reserve; they want to have a strategic critical mineral reserve. We believe we can accomplish that, and we are in very detailed discussions on that,” he said.

Kaye mentioned that the government has announced deals with Intel, MP Materials, and others. “What the government did with MP Materials is to give them a 10-year offtake agreement at a floor price, in addition to taking an equity position. That is something that we are interested in,” he said. “When I testified before Congress about two months ago, I said, ‘Give us a standby agreement for the critical minerals that you need at a floor price, and help to accelerate permits.’ And I think the government clearly understands that.”

“Our first priority is shareholder value creation. Second is what’s best for national defense,” said Kaye.

Local opposition to the mining proposal has been growing since the first Notice of Intent to the Forest Service to do hand sampling at the claims was approved three years ago. 

Bitterroot Clean Water Alliance formed in direct opposition to the mine and one of the group’s founders, Dr. Phillip Ramsey, a local researcher and expert on the impacts of mining who worked for years on the Superfund Site Clean-up on the Clark Fork River, has been making the rounds presenting educational talks on the dangers of REE mining and the alternatives that are available in existing mine sites to recover rare earth elements rather than sacrificing a pristine watershed and potentially damaging Ravalli County’s agricultural and recreational based economy. 

The Bitterroot River Protection Association recently concluded a baseline water quality monitoring study that validates the pristine water quality of the watershed in the vicinity of the mining claims. (See last week’s story in the Bitterroot Star: https://bitterrootstar.com/2025/11/pristine-waters-of-the-west-fork/)

Other local organizations including Friends of the Bitterroot and Ravalli County Fish and Wildlife Association and Bitterroot Trout Unlimited have also come out in opposition to the mine.

The Bitterroot Water Partnership responded quickly to the latest listing in a press release.

“The Sheep Creek exploration phase is listed on the ‘FAST-41 Transparency Dashboard’, while its developers have exercised no transparency – or consultation – with our community about their intentions. Given the total lack of communication with the people who would be impacted, it’s not appropriate for this proposal to be fast-tracked,” said Heather Barber, Executive Director of the Bitterroot Water Partnership.

“The Water Partnership has a reputation for working with diverse partners and representing balanced perspectives around water management. We are not against responsible development,” said Barber. “However, until we are convinced otherwise, the Bitterroot Water Partnership opposes a mine in our Headwaters. Everything we’ve learned about rare earth mining tells us it’d be disastrous for downstream communities. The headwaters of the Bitterroot River is not the right place for this. By Fast Tracking the exploration process of this proposed mine, US Critical Materials is demonstrating a complete lack of respect for local communities and our input in the future of our own home. There are busy, hard-working people here who deserve ample opportunity to review the proposed process, provide input, and review the applicant’s response for accuracy.” 

The Ravalli County Commissioners have scheduled a public meeting for Monday, December 1 at 1:30 p.m. at the Event Center at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds in Hamilton. The meeting agenda is discussion and possible decision on sending a letter of opposition to the Sheep Creek Mine proposal.