Montanore permitting at final stages

The Montanore project, several decades in the making, could come to fruition as early as September, if everything goes according to plan.

Eric Klepfer, a mining services contractor hired by Montanore to complete the permitting process, said last week that the Final Environmental Impact Statement is expected to be drafted by Feb. 27, and printed during the first half of March.

Once the statement is released, a 45-day public objection period will begin. During that process, parties objecting to the information contained in the report can file formal objections with the United States Forest Service.

At the end of that period, the forest service will have 45 days to respond to those objections and issue a revised impact statement and possibly a Record of Decision. The response period could be extended by 30 or even 60 days, depending upon the objections and what needs be added in order to address them.

The Montanore Mine has been a sore spot with Libby residents for more than two decades. The permit application was originally filed by Canada’s Noranda Minerals in 1993.

Montanore acquired interest in the mine in 2005 and began the process of re-permitting as an amendment to the original 1993 application. The process has been inching its way forward for nearly a decade.

Klepfer said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the process will be complete by September, although delays have slowed this process down for years. Many of those delays he attributed to previous forest service personnel and management.

“I’m confident that if the forest service wants to get this done, they can make it happen,” he said. “I don’t want to be a negative Nelly, but we’ve got to see them perform.”

The new forest plan, signed earlier this year, was responsible for a part of the current delay, Klepfer said. Montanore had to rework a piece of the impact statement in order to comply with the plan’s requirements. As the project had not yet been permitted, it was not grandfathered into the new plan.

Klepfer expressed his confidence in new forest service management, especially Forest Supervisor Chris Savage, who assumed his post last year.

Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck echoed that confidence. “I’ve got faith that they, let me rephrase, that Chris Savage, is working hard to get this thing done,” Peck said.

Assuming the draft statement is printed by March 15, the 45-day objection period would end May 1. The 45-day response period would then begin, with an  end date of June 15, barring extension from the forest service. The maximum extension is 60 days, which would end Aug. 15.

Every day of delay in the release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement results in additional delays in the permitting, as the process is driven by established dates and time windows.

Following the end of the objection period, there is no set time limit on when a revised impact statement and record of decision must be issued, said Savage. “It really depends on what we see come out of the objection process,” he said.

Klepfer said Montanore spent 10 years developing the environmental impact statement and now the ball is in the forest service’s court. “It makes me nervous,” he said, but he retains his optimism.

“We haven’t been this far before, so we’re optimistic. But we’re cautiously optimistic,” Klepfer said.

Savage was also unwilling to commit to a hard date. “I’m not sure as we are taking this one step at a time. Our plan is to start the objection process hopefully mid-March and go from there. It will really depend on what happens through the objection process,” he said.

Klepfer doesn’t expect much in the way of objections at this point. He said the process is limited to objections which were filed previously and those, he said, have already been addressed.

“It really shouldn’t be that difficult from here,” he said.

Last year Montanore Chief Executive Officer Glenn Dobbs estimated the mine would produce up to 300 jobs in Lincoln County.