Petition calls for fresh look at Rock Creek Mine impacts

SANDPOINT — Conservation groups are petitioning the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to take a fresh look at the impacts the proposed Rock Creek Mine could have on endangered grizzly bear and bull trout.

The groups, which include the Rock Creek Alliance, Earthworks and the Idaho Council of Trout Unlimited, filed the petition in Helena, Mont., on Tuesday.

The petition is meant to get Fish & Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service to reinitiate consultation on a biological opinion, which assesses threats to endangered and threatened species.

“There’s new information and new circumstances that have arisen since that biological opinion was first published.” said Mary Crowe Costello, executive director of the Rock Creek Alliance.

The groups contend the 2006 biological opinion did not contemplate changes to surface flows and temperature in Rock Creek because none were anticipated. The biological opinion mainly addressed sediment loading in the creek.

However, three-dimensional groundwater modeling conducted for another company’s proposal to develop the nearby Montanore ore body indicated that the Rock Creek project would reduce flows in both Rock Creek and the East Fork of the Bull River.

“The 3-D hydrological monitoring that they did on Montanore actually revealed there would be dewatering impacts from the Rock Creek Mine. They never did that type of modeling on Rock Creek,” said Crowe Costello.

Moreover, the language of the 2006 biological opinion states that if new information reveals there is a risk to Rock Creek bull trout, it would trigger another round of formal consultation between the Forest Service and Fish & Wildlife.

Fish & Wildlife’s no-jeopardy determination on bull trout in 2006 also relied heavily upon establishing fish passage at the Cabinet Gorge and Noxon Rapids dams, which also has not occurred, according to the petitioners.

The groups’ petition also documents that strategies Fish & Wildlife believed would protect the vulnerable grizzly bear population from human-caused mortalities have been ineffective even though mining activities at Rock Creek have yet to commence.

The groups also point out that Fish & Wildlife estimated that only 21 grizzlies remain in the Cabinet Mountains and the only thing that has prevented outright extirpation of grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem has been augmenting the population with transplants.

The groups maintain that human-caused grizzly bear deaths have not slowed since the release of the biological opinion.

“So, clearly, even without a mine, the conflict mitigation measures are not being effective,” Crowe Costello said.

The petitioners’ legal counsel, Katherine O’Brien of Earthjustice, contend that bull trout and grizzly bears are hanging by a thread in the Cabinets.

“New information reveals that the Rock Creek mine will dewater bull trout streams and that the mine’s plan for avoiding grizzly bear mortalities is unlikely to work. The Endangered Species Act demands scrutiny of the proposed mine to ensure that it does not push these populations beyond the point of no return,” O’Brien said in a statement.

The Forest Service is reportedly in the home stretch in preparing a supplemental final environmental impact statement on Revett Minerals’ Rock Creek proposal, which will prompt another round of public review under the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Given we’re in the process of reviewing impacts, this is the time to be looking at the dewatering and the failure of the mitigation for grizzly bear to reduce human-caused mortality,” said Crowe Costello.