A different kind of mining

Underground silver mines and gravel quarries are old hat to North Idahoans, but a new kind of mine is moving into the area.

Instead of collecting the rough materials to boil down to ore or to make into something else, these mines pluck full boulders and large pieces of rock for use in landscaping and as luxury home countertops.

LaClede, Idaho, company Riley Creek Lumber is applying for a conditional use permit to remove large rocks from a talus slope on Frost Peak in eastern Kootenai County off Interstate 90 near Kingston. The rocks would be used in landscape decoration and to build retaining walls.

The Kootenai County Hearing Examiner will consider the permit request Thursday.

Rocks would be removed from 17 acres of the 1,040-acre site. Another four acres would be used for waste rock with an additional seven acres used to process the rocks.

Riley Creek Lumber’s Jim Palombi refused to discuss his mining plans until after any permits are issued.

But Eric Wilson with the Idaho Department of Lands said that decorative rock mining is becoming more common in the state.

Though the practice has only taken hold in North Idaho within the last five years, boulder harvesting has been commonplace in the Boise area since the 1980s, said Wilson, who heads up the department’s Navigable Waters and Minerals Program.

“A lot of it is development driven,” Wilson said, adding that the costs of transporting large rocks over long distances can be cost prohibitive.

There are a couple of Idaho decorative rock suppliers that have specialty products that are shipped across the country and world, but that’s not the norm.

Oakley Stone, for example, is a quartzite stone that can be split into thin veneers. It comes from an area near the Idaho-Utah border.

Some decorative stone mining has been controversial because of its impact to the aesthetic beauty of certain areas.

Crystal Mountain near Boise was a candidate for National Monument designation because of its unique geology, but quartz mining there nixed that idea.

The Riley Creek Lumber mining plan has caused some concerns with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Regional Fish and Game Supervisor Chip Corsi wrote a letter to Kootenai County Planning officials late last year indicating that the mining plan could impact animals, including wolverines, which use boulder fields for denning and cover.

“Wolverines may abandon dens in response to disturbance. Additionally, disturbance can reduce foraging opportunities, and may affect reproductive success,” Corsi wrote. “Limiting disturbance to occupied habitat, particularly habitat associated with den sites, is critical to the long-term persistence of the species in the state.”

Corsi emphasized the importance of reclamation of the site after mining.

Wilson said that decorative rock mining typically doesn’t have the same environmental impacts as other types of mining.

“If it’s done properly, there is not much impact,” he said, noting that erosion control is the biggest issue. “If it’s done improperly, it can be pretty ugly.”