Public meetings address Rock Creek concerns

Representatives of Revett Silver and its parent company, Hecla Mining, presented information about the proposed Rock Creek Mine and the related Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to standing-room-only crowds in Noxon, Thompson Falls and Libby this week. The SDEIS was released by the United States Forest Service Feb. 19, 2016, which triggered a 45-day public comment period about the mine which is scheduled to conclude April 4, 2016.

Revett Silver general manager Doug Stiles, who is the project lead for both the reclamation project at the Troy Mine and for the final permitting of Rock Creek, spent about 45 minutes each evening providing a general overview of the project, the mitigation plans and the company’s vision to the assembled audiences. He explained the history of the project, the history of Hecla Mining and the company’s vision for building and operating the mine over the course of the next 33 to 38 years.

The United States Forest Service originally issued the Record of Decision for Rock Creek in 2001, which became the subject of heated litigation. A Biological Opinion was issued in 2006, which was also challenged in court.

In 2010, United States District Judge Donald Molloy remanded the Record of Decision back to the Kootenai National Forest, Stiles said, to address four technical shortcomings. The current DSEIS is the result of the remand, and provides mitigation for those technical issues. The Biological Opinion was also challenged in court, but was upheld by a decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011.

The areas of mitigation addressed in the new DSEIS, Stiles said, are in the areas of tailings impoundment, water quality and wildlife protections.

Tailings are essentially the material left over after the desired ore, in the case of Rock Creek primarily silver and copper, are extracted. The leftover material at Rock Creek, the tailings, will be in a dry paste form, which will be stored in large impoundment ponds on the site, which will be reseeded and revegetated in layers as they come out of the mine. Due to the dry tailings method being employed at Rock Creek, the company said they intend to use a number of sprinklers and other dust-control measures to prevent any adverse impacts to air quality.

Stiles showed slides of tailings reclamation at the Troy Mine, which resembled flat plateuas with new vegetation and trees growing on them. As one layer of impoundment reaches the desired height, it is hydroseeded and planted, then additional layers are added over time, building up a vegetated hill with a flat top as part of the permanent landscape.

“The Rock Creek tailings facility will encompass about 320 acres and will be located adjacent to highway 200 near an existing sawmill,” a company release stated. “Tailings material will be transported from the mill to the tailings facility via a dual-walled pipeline fitted with leak detection devices, then dewatered to a paste-like consistency with very low water content. Retaining buttresses around the facility will provide increased stability while allowing concurrent reclamation of the embankment during operation.”

The company’s water reclamation plan includes recycling the vast majority of the water flow from the mine adit. The water will be treated and recycled back into the milling and tailing process continually, with only the excess discharged back into the Clark Fork River. The DSEIS anticipates less than 400 gallons per minute of flow being cleaned and discharged back into the river.

“During Phase I Evaluation, any excess water flow from the adit will be collected and routed to a multi-stage water treatment system, then directed to onsite infiltration ponds,” the statement read. “Excess water will be similarly treated during Phase II, but nearly all of it will be using during mine construction. Once the mine is in production, it’s currently estimated that few than 400 gallons per minute will be treated and released into the Clark Fork River. It will not only meet standards set for the protection of fish and aquatic life; it will actually be cleaner than the river water itself. Rock Creek’s geochemistry is similar to that of the nearby Troy Mine which operated for nearly 30 years without adverse water quality impacts.”

The primary species issues involved at Rock Creek are the grizzly bear and bull trout populations. Stiles said Hecla’s history at the Greens Creek Mine on Admiralty Island, Alaska, speaks to the company’s ability to operate a productive mine in an environmentally sensitive area. Admiralty Island, he said, is home to more grizzly bears than the entire lower 48 continental states and the bears live in harmony with the mine and miners at Greens Creek. Additionally, the area is home to five different species of Pacific salmon, the populations of which have suffered no adverse impacts from the presence and operation of the mine. The Biological Opinion concurred with the company’s mitigation strategy and claims, and was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The participants at the meeting in Noxon expressed concerns primarily with the potential impacts to water quality, both in local wells and in the neighboring Clark Fork River.

Montana Wilderness Association president Doug Ferrell was present at the meeting and defended the company’s record of water quality protection. He told the audience he had been involved with the initial permitting of the Troy Mine nearly three decades before and had closely followed the mine’s construction, operation and eventual closing. He participated in regular monitoring of water quality of the surrounding rivers, streams and groundwater and reported the quality of water around the mine in no way adversely impacted by the mine.

Troy Mayor Darren Coldwell was also at the Noxon meeting and gave an empassioned impromptu speech in support of Revett’s corporate citizenship. He told the crowd about the civic involvement of the company’s employees and managers and about the generous donations made by the company to the Troy community and schools. Hecla vice president of external affairs Luke Russell was also at the meeting and reiterated the new company’s commitment to the corporate citizenship shown by Revett. One example of the company’s commitment, said external affairs coordinator Monique Hayes, is the company’s recent decision to help promote 20 scholarships for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) scholarships for Montana students pursuing college education in those fields.

The crowd at Thompson Falls seemed more concerned with mine safety, especially in light of the seismic events which resulted in the shutdown of the Troy Mine. Stiles explained the Rock Creek Mine, while similar to Troy, also has significant differences that will contribute to increase safety in the design. The room and pillar design in Troy had ceilings with an average height of between 60 and 90 feet. In Rock Creek, the ore beds are anticipated to be approximately 27 feet high, which will bring the ceilings down to lower than 30 feet and the company will be leaving bigger pillars in the rooms. Both measures provide for increased safety and stability, he said. Also, the new DSEIS calls for more rigorous safety reviews, with engineering inspections at least twice per year.

The topic of jobs also came up in Thompson Falls, as it did with the crowd in Libby. Stiles said during Phase I, the evaluation phase of the mine, the company anticipates between 80 and 84 jobs, and while many of those would be contracted positions, he anticipates up to 60 percent of the slots being filled by local workers. Assuming the evaluation supports the data in the SEIS, Stiles said the construction and operation of the mine would result in about 300 to 340 jobs, with an annual payroll hovering around $30 million.

Overall economic impact from the mine is expected to exceed $660 million in salaries, $175 million in tax revenue and $400 million in ancillary goods and services being purchased over the 33 to 38 year life cycle of the project, from evaluation to reclamation.