Court decision validates opponents' concerns

The recent decision by the Montana Supreme Court to pull the Rock Creek mine's permit to discharge effluent into the Clark Fork River further validates the complaint opponents have with its threat to the Region's water. The court expressed concerns about this mine proposal because it would create a perpetual discharge and questioned who would be responsible for the inevitable impacts once the company closed its operation. The court went on to say "it is a given that the mine will close in a few years, Revett will be gone, and the polluted discharge will continue and cannot be shut off."

This summer was a boom for the metal mining industry, enjoying record high prices for copper and silver. Revett Minerals, confident that the $3.50 per pound copper and the $17 per ounce silver would be sustained aggressively, pursued the Rock Creek mine project, anxious to begin blasting an evaluation adit beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness.

A few very short months later came the bust when the metals market collapsed; copper prices plummeted to $1.50 per pound and silver to $10 an ounce. Employees at Revett's mine operation in Troy have had wages cut with the prospect of layoffs, and even the company's stock value has dramatically depreciated.

How can anyone be confident in an industry and a company that can go from boom to bust in a mere three months? How can any state or federal permitting agency be so naïve as to believe that any long-term commitment to the region's environment by the industry or this company will ever be met?  

JIM COSTELLO

Trout Creek, Mont.