Agency holds public meeting on mine
Area residents had the opportunity to ask questions and register comments with the United States Forest Service about the proposed Rock Creek Mine at a public meeting in Libby Wednesday evening.
The sparsely-attended meeting, hosted by staff of the Kootenai National Forest, also included representatives of the environmental contractor who prepared the environmental impact statement and Revett Silver and its parent company, Hecla Mining. While participation at the meeting was light, the agency has received a high volume of comments about the project, said project coordinator Michael Huffine.
“We’ve definitely seen some interest in people reviewing the project,” he said. “There’s been a high level of comments, but it’s still too early to categorize them as mostly supportive or opposed.”
The mine, almost 30 years in the making, is now in the final stages of the permitting process. The agency released a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement Feb. 19, 2016, which triggered the current 45-day comment period. The supplmental is the result of United States District Judge Donald Molloy’s 2010 decision to remand the 2001 Record of Decision back to the forest for clarification of three technical deficiencies found in the original analysis.
Molloy determined the previous statement failed to clearly require the implementation of sediment source reduction measures during the evaluation phase of the project, did not consider supplemental information about sensitive bull trout populations and did not clearly show the effects from mine construction and operations on Riparian Habitat Conservation Areas. The supplemental statement, Huffine said, addresses those areas of deficiency and provides updated information in areas in which new data has become available since the 2001 statement.
“The Draft SEIS addresses the deficiencies found by the court and updates othe resource analyses where the Forest Service identified significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts,” the agency released in a written statement. “For the Draft SEIS, the analyses disclosed in the 2001 FEIS are updated or supplemented for resources that may be substantially affected by changes in circumstances or new information. Only the specific issues associated with supplemental information are addressed in the Draft SEIS. Issues satisfactorily addressed in the 2001 FEIS are not discussed in the Draft SEIS.”
The comment period is scheduled to end April 4, 2016. Once the comment period closes, the Forest Service will evaluate the comments and determine what, if any, amendments to the draft statement need to be made. Once necessary changes are made, the agency will release a Final Supplemental Enviornmental Impact Statement and Draft Record of Decision, which could come as early as the end of this year.
Release of the draft decision will trigger a 45-day objection period. Objections received during that period will be evaluated and responded to by the agency in the release of the Final Record of Decision. Huffine said the final decision could be issued by the end of the third quarter of 2017.
The mine, which will be built near Noxon in Sanders County, is expected to employ more than 80 people with an annual payroll of nearly $10 million during the two to three year evaluation phase. During operations, the mine is expected to employ roughly 340 people with an annual payroll exceeding $30 million.