by Bob Williams, Stevensville
U.S. Critical Materials Corp. (USCM) wants a USFS Permit to drill then blast an underground, eventually high production mine on USFS property, at the very headwaters of the West Fork of the Bitterroot River.
But, it will be years before extracted ore could be processed! Unestimated years!
Who can afford to finance a mine where what’s mined is not readily sold? The U.S. Government!
USCM is a junior exploration company. It has never operated a mine. It has not sought U.S. investors. It is actively seeking federal funding.
USCM says within the proposed mine, during the first year of operation, it would pulverize chunks of high grade, hard rock, carbonatite ore into 10,743 tons of “sand-type” material. Low grade alkaline carbonatite ore would remain in the mine.
Sand type material to go to the 890 square mile Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Which is a long way from constructing a DOE funded, first of a kind, Pilot Scale electrolysis process to intake one to two tons a day of sand type high grade carbonatite ore. Then separate out gallium, rare earth elements (REE), and critical metals to be used by DOD.
USCM Chief Executive Harvey Kaye also suggests transporting Montana mined carbonatite to stockpile at an Army base in Alabama.
Stockpiling it until a secure facility could get permits to use multiple leach ponds, and various solvents, to separate out various elements and metals critical for DOD.
The more such a mine would be expanded, would mean the more likelihood that portions of the mine would eventually be flooded. By years of explosives fracturing layers of hornblende gneiss and amphibolite, between which water has long been perched.
In the USCM Draft Initial Plan of Operation, during the first year of exploration, and ore extraction, USCM would drill about 35,000 holes.
Loading most of those holes with standard ammonia nitrate/fuel oil explosives would require about 140,000 to 180,000 total pounds of ANFO.
Such proposed mine may eventually perch an underground pit of poisoned water above propagating “fracture flow” draining water to seep into the headwaters of the West Fork of the Bitterroot River.
Especially if, as we have recently learned, USCM wants to obtain drill core samples, then mine the extensive mass of alkaline carbonatite under its 60 identified dikes. Some dikes 125’ deep. Some dikes a mile in length. Between the dikes is metamorphic pre-cambrian rock. The Butte pit is about one mile by half a mile.
The very worst place to construct a high production underground mine would be at 7,300’ elevation close to and above Sheep Creek. Above the watershed into the Bitterroot Valley.
IMO, Sheep Creek and mine do not now belong in the same sentence.
This summer, to explore and map a mother lode of carbonatite below the dikes, the US DOD is paying Montana Tech to use a $300,000 high tech sensor drone.
The US government must not spend any more money trying to prepare for a long term mine at the very headwater of the West Fork of the Bitterroot River.
Be concerned! USCM has a working relationship with GreenMet to cut out red tape in applying for funds, and purchase agreements, with DOD and DOE.
Yesterday. I read that January 20, 2026 is the deadline for application to the US Department of Energy Mines and Metals Capacity Expansion for Demonstration Facilities to receive grants from a $275 to $355 million dollar tranche.
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