Colvilles Vote Against Gold Mining

A straw poll of Colville Confederated Tribes members has gone against mining on their reservation, including treaty lands near the proposed Crown Jewel gold project in northern Okanogan County.

The nearly unanimous show of hands last weekend at a general membership meeting is not binding, and has no immediate impact on the massive open-pit gold mine planned by Houston-based Battle Mountain Gold Co. on Buckhorn Mountain, near Chesaw and the Canadian border.

Only about 400 of the tribe’s 8,300 enrolled members were present during the mining plebiscite, a tribal official who asked to remain anonymous said Tuesday.

The poll follows a resolution by the 14-member Tribal Business Council in August to oppose “any precious metals mining activities within the boundaries, or adjacent to the boundaries, of the former North Half of the Colville Indian Reservation.”

The North Half, stretching from the reservation’s present northern boundary to the Canadian border, was ceded to the United States in the 1800s, but the Colvilles still retain hunting and fishing rights on the former reservation lands.

The Crown Jewel project would be located in the North Half.

“As Indian people, we have been forced to move many times for gold. Now they want to mine gold from the reservation. We will not let them do that,” said tribal elder Georgia Iukes. “Now the tribe has spoken. We will not be moved again.”

The proposed Crown Jewel Mine is currently under environmental study.

Battle Mountain has proposed the state’s first open pit gold property that is expected to yield 1.6 million ounces of gold during eight years of mining.

Tribal authorities previously issued some permits to allow mining companies to conduct exploratory work on the reservation but no actual mining is taking place.