Bill rankles foes of Rock Creek mine

SANDPOINT — That was quick.

About a month after mining industry officials appealed to Montana legislators to make the business climate more hospitable toward mine development comes legislation which aims to do just that.

The Montana Senate voted 30-20 late last month to endorse a bill that narrows the scope of the Montana Environmental Policy Act and prevents legal challenges of MEPA project reviews, The Missoulian reported on Thursday.

The bill was sponsored by Sen. Jim Keane, a Democrat from Butte, who contends legal actions involving MEPA have thwarted mining projects in the state. Keane told the newspaper that the bill will help create jobs.

“This bill does not stop any of the review of MEPA. It adjusts what the law does in a fair and balanced matter,” Keane told the Missoulian.

The chairman of the board at Revett Minerals, which is proposing a copper and silver mine near Noxon, was among those appealing to Montana lawmakers for a streamlined permitting process and fewer opportunities for legal challenges.

“They wanted their projects to be approved — they almost wanted a guarantee.

“You look at this legislation and it is exactly what the mining companies requested,” said Jim Costello of the Rock Creek Alliance, which is deposing the project near Noxon.

Although there is some doubt Senate Bill 233 could be retroactively applied to the Rock Creek proposal, Costello said there is concern that it could be used to by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to skirt a non-degradation review on the project that was urged by the Montana Supreme Court.

“Part of the ‘non-deg’ review is they have to consider the downstream impacts — economic impacts to communities such as Sandpoint,” he said.

The Rock Creek project, currently the subject of legal challenges in state and federal court, would discharge in the Clark Fork River, which flows into Lake Pend Oreille.

The bill heads to the state’s House of Representatives.

Costello said the alliance is running the bill past its legal counsel to determine what impact it could have on the proposed Rock Creek Mine.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the draft of this bill was written on mining company letterhead,” he said.