Firm revives Cabinet mine

A second Spokane mining company plans to extract silver and copper from beneath the rugged Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area.

On Wednesday, officials at Mines Management Inc. said the company will embark on a 20- to 24-month permitting process for the proposed Montanore Mine. The $236 million project would be a neighbor of the controversial Rock Creek Mine. Both would tunnel underneath the remote wilderness on the Idaho-Montana border to extract minerals from deep in the mountains.

Though the projects would share an ore body, Mines Management President Glenn Dobbs said he doubts that his mine proposal will generate the backlash associated with the Rock Creek Mine.

“Rock Creek drains into the Clark Fork River, which has become a real flash point for environmentalists. They can make it into a very emotional issue to raise money for their cause,” Dobbs said.

New York jeweler Tiffany & Co. ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post in March, criticizing the Forest Service for approving the Rock Creek Mine. The company, a large silver consumer, said the wilderness has more value as a home for endangered grizzly and lynx than mineral extraction.

Many Sandpoint residents also oppose the Rock Creek Mine. They fear its discharge has the potential to pollute the Clark Fork, which fills Lake Pend Oreille, a tourist attraction and cultural icon in Bonner County.

Dobbs thinks local residents will distinguish between the two projects. Though for the record, he’s worked in mine finance for 20 years, and he supports the Rock Creek Mine, a project of Revett Silver Co.

Revett, formerly called Sterling Mining, is working to raise $20 million for a detailed feasibility study of the Rock Creek Mine.

Steep ridges separate Rock Creek and Montanore deposits. Any wastewater discharges from the Montanore Mine would flow east into the Kootenai River Basin, which heads north into Canada, Dobbs said.

“It isn’t the flash point the Clark Fork is,” he said.

In addition, Montanore’s previous owner has already fought most of the mine’s environmental battles, he said. Noranda Inc. spent $100 million on the Montanore project before withdrawing its permit in 2002, Dobbs said.

“The environmental groups filed lawsuits, and Noranda litigated them in court, and litigated them successfully,” he said.

Mines Management, a former minority partner in the project, acquired full ownership when Noranda pulled out. Dobbs said the Montanore project has strong support in Western Montana, where it could pump $2 billion into local communities over the life of the mine.

According to company projections, the Montanore project would produce 8 million ounces of silver each year, and 64 million pounds of copper. It would take 30 months to build, and operate 15 to 20 years, Dobbs said.

Montanore would employ about 250 people – far fewer than the 425 employees that Noranda once proposed. Dobbs said lower employment would reduce the impact on grizzlies and their habitat, an issue likely to get intense scrutiny in the new round of federal and state permitting.

The Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area is home to about 15 threatened grizzlies. About 30 to 40 are believed to live in a federal recovery zone that includes the wilderness and the nearby Yaak region.

When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signed off on the Rock Creek project last year, agency officials said the outlook for grizzlies had improved because Noranda had dropped its plans. Wildlife officials had cited worries about the two mines “restricting and pinching grizzly bear habitat,” and the influx of workers moving into the area for employment at the mines.

“We look at not only the impacts of a mine, but its potential to bring more people to the area. That creates more subdivisions, more outdoor recreation, more hunting,” said Wayne Kasworm, a wildlife biologist for the grizzly program.

Bear mortality inevitably increases with human-grizzly interaction, he said. Hunters mistake grizzlies for black bears, and garbage cans bring bears in neighborhoods, Kasworm said.

But Dobbs said he doesn’t anticipate an influx of workers with the smaller number of employees. Most would come from the existing communities of Libby and Troy, he said.

“If you’re bringing fewer people in, you’re having fewer people driving mountain roads and fewer going hunting in their spare time,” Dobbs said.