Suit challenges no-jeopardy call on mine

SANDPOINT — A coalition of environmental groups filed suit in federal court Wednesday to challenge a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service determination that the proposed Montanore mine would not jeopardize endangered bull trout and grizzly bear.

Save Our Cabinets joined with Earthworks and Defenders of Wildlife in filing the suit in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. The groups are represented by Earthjustice.

The suit seeks to upend a Fish & Wildlife biological opinion that Mines Management’s copper and silver mine proposal south of Libby poses no threat to the recovery or survival of bull trout and grizzly bear.

“The mine would dramatically set back all of the recovery efforts that are being undertaken for bull trout in the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille watershed,” said Mary Crowe Costello of Save Our Cabinets in Heron.

Crowe Costello said Avista, Trout Unlimited and others are engaged in a series of projects to aid bull trout recovery in the lower Clark Fork River core area. The projects include establishing fish passage at the Cabinet Gorge Dam and tributary enhancement work.

The groups contend that the Montanore project is predicted to cause a de-watering of the East Fork of the Bull River and Rock Creek.

“Those are the two most important streams for bull trout recovery in the lower Clark Fork core area,” Crowe Costello said.

The groups argue that Montanore and the proposed Rock Creek mine would spell doom for grizzlies.

“If the Montanore mine goes in, it’s going to have a dramatic impact on that small population of grizzly bear would likely — in combination with Rock Creek —  push them over the brink to the point that there would no long be bears in that southern portion of the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem,” said Crowe Costello.

Mines Management of Spokane, Wash., seeks to extract an estimated 230 million ounces of silver and nearly 60 million pounds of copper. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The U.S. Forest Service issued a draft record of decision and a final environmental impact statement in April. The agency is hosting a meeting with those who have raised objections about the mining proposal on June 30 at the Kootenai National Forest Supervisor’s Office in Libby.

Save Our Cabinets anticipates that the Forest Service will ultimately permit the mine despite the objections. Crowe Costello said the permit’s issuance would open another legal front in a bid to stop the mine from being developed.

“Bull trout and grizzly bears in the Cabinet Mountains are teetering on the brink of extinction, and the Fish & Wildlife Service’s own evidence shows that the Montanore Mine would push them over the edge,” Earthjustice attorney Katherine O’Brien said in a statement. “The service had no basis to conclude that turning these species’ habitat into an industrial mine site would allow them to survive and recover.”