Gold Mine Turns To Lead For Hecla

It was going to be Hecla Mining Co.’s golden promise. It turned out to be the company’s leaden failure.

The Grouse Creek mine near Challis, Idaho, had all the markings to be Hecla’s flagship gold property well into the next century.

Situated in a remote mountain range in the historic Challis Mining District and rimmed by other working mines nearby, Grouse Creek seemed to be a ripe opportunity for Hecla to boost its gold reserves.

Primarily known as a silver producer, Hecla had recently looked to more stable and profitable gold mines over silver projects subject to roller-coaster prices.

Over years of sampling, Hecla geologists outlined two areas of Grouse Creek where they felt reasonably confident gold existed.

Seven independent consultants examined Hecla’s methods of drilling in Grouse Creek and signed off, said Vicki Veltkamp, manager of corporate communications.

After drilling, geologists applied a commonly used model to reach conclusions about how much gold-bearing rock was there, and at what concentrations.

Despite advances in technology and the use of computer-aided models, mining will never be an exact science, said Ivan Urnovitz of the Spokane-based Northwest Mining Association. The Northwest is a complex geological place.

Gold properties with easily-spotted reserves are all but gone, making any investment in new gold mining in our area that much riskier, Urnovitz said.

Mining decisions are, at best, educated guesses. Hecla geologists guessed wrong.

The first 12 “benches” or sections of the Grouse Creek pit showed encouraging amounts of ore - or rock containing gold - Veltkamp said.

The latest three benches were the problem. There Hecla expected to run into some of the richest pockets of ore.

Neither the amount of ore nor its grade came close to meeting expectations. That sent up red flags.

Closing the mine is an option, but Grouse Creeks’ fate won’t be known until a new study of the project is completed in the first three months of 1996, Veltkamp said.

The study could write a sad final chapter to what was once a hopeful story.

The mine took years to plan and permit with dozens of state and federal agencies, as do most new mine projects launched in the United States today. In creating Grouse Creek, Hecla restored 30 acres of salmon habitat and improved 80 others.

The environmental work earned Hecla two of Idaho’s top reclamation awards and Hecla executives have cited it as a model for the industry’s environmental responsibility.

, DataTimes