Trump signs executive order to expedite permitting of Lincoln Co. mine

The Trump administration announced recently that it would “expedite permitting” for 10 mining projects across the country, including an exploration beneath the Cabinet Mountains in Lincoln County. 

As part of the Libby Exploration Project’s inclusion in the president’s executive order issued last Friday, the proposed copper and silver mine will be added to the government’s FAST-41 Permitting Dashboard. The dashboard, which allows stakeholders and the public to know where the project is in the review process, stated Monday that a detailed permitting timetable for the Libby mine would be published on or before May 2. 

However, just because the federal government has stated its commitment to speeding up the permitting process doesn’t mean that copper and silver will be extracted from the mountains any sooner than originally planned, according to officials with Hecla Mining Co., the company that owns the proposed mine. 

The Lincoln County project was added to the list by the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. The permitting council was established by the Obama administration in 2015 and made a permanent federal agency by the Biden administration in 2021. 

News that the Libby project would be included on the permitting dashboard comes just weeks after President Trump signed an executive order calling for increased mineral production, particularly on federal lands. Federal officials said the increase is needed to remain competitive with other major mining producers like China.  

And while Hecla officials are optimistic they will eventually be able to operate a mine in Lincoln County, environmental groups are concerned about the impact the mine would have on the Cabinet Mountains, a protected wilderness area and an important habitat for grizzly bears and bull trout. 

“I’m not naive, I understand we need mining to support our modern life, but this is literally underneath a wilderness,” Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, previously told Montana Free Press.

The Libby Exploration Project, previously called the Montanore Mine, was initially proposed in the early 1980s. Shortly after, a nearly horizontal 14,000-foot exploratory mine shaft (known as an adit) was constructed to reach the copper and silver deposits. By some estimates, there are 500 million ounces of silver and 4 billion pounds of copper beneath the Cabinet Mountains.

Montanore was owned by a series of small mining companies until 2016, when it was purchased by Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla Mining Co. for $30 million. The previous year, Hecla had purchased Revett Mining Co., which owned the shuttered Troy Mine (a small copper and silver mine south of Troy that operated on and off from 1981 until its permanent closure in 2015) and the proposed Rock Creek Mine in Sanders County. 

The acquisition of the Montanore and Rock Creek projects by Hecla was celebrated by local officials in northwest Montana. The thinking went that if anyone could get the mines open, it would be Hecla, which currently has operations in Alaska, Idaho and Quebec. 

Under previous owners, the Montanore and Rock Creek projects had received a patchwork of state and federal approvals to begin exploration. But in February 2022, Hecla withdrew those plans and started from scratch, focusing exclusively on Montanore. Hecla maintains ownership of the Rock Creek Mine but has said it will not seek exploration permits on the project until the Libby Exploration Project moves forward. 

Hecla’s proposed plan of operation calls for drying the existing adit (about 7,000 feet of it is underwater) and extending it another 4,200 feet until it is directly above the deposit. The company plans to build an additional 6,300 feet of tunnels to aid in its exploration. The exploration effort to evaluate the quality of the deposit would occur over the course of 16 years, including the eventual closure of the adit and reclamation of the site. Hecla officials have said that during the construction, exploration and reclamation phases, the company would likely employ 30 to 35 people. 

Even before the Trump Administration got involved, the Libby Exploration Project was already on track to receive a Draft Environmental Assessment of its proposed plan of operations this year. 

Mike Satre, Hecla’s director of governmental affairs, wrote in an email to MTFP that the inclusion of the Lincoln County project in Trump’s executive order did not mean the company would skip permitting steps, nor would it change the company’s 16-year timeline of building out the mine, analyzing the copper and silver deposit, and then closing the adit before making a final decision. Satre previously said mine projects like the one south of Libby take, on average, 29 years to locate, permit and construct in the United States.

“Hecla is pleased to see that the Trump administration understands the significant potential of this copper and silver project in Montana,” Satre wrote to MTFP. “Placing the Libby Exploration Project on the FAST-41 dashboard and hopefully moving towards approval of our plan of operations is a significant step towards Hecla unlocking the value of this project. We look forward to working with the United States Forest Service, the Libby community and all other stakeholders to responsibly conduct our exploration activities once they are approved.”