Press Contact
Rock Creek Alliance is available for media interviews and can also provide information on the mine permitting process, public meetings and other related issues. To arrange an interview for a story, please contact:
Jim Costello
(406) 544-1494
jimrca@rockcreekalliance.org
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NEWS
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Wilderness
It is a wilderness! The original Wilderness Act of 1964 included protections for only a select group of the most special wildlands in America. Included on that short list was the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in northwestern Montana. Now they want to mine it! This small wilderness includes 85 alpine lakes, some of which would sit atop this massive proposed mining project. Draining, dewatering, and polluting are very real possibilities for these pristine wilderness lakes.
Perpetual Pollution
Thye Rock Creek Mine would discharge 3,000,000 gallons of mine effluent into the Clark Fork River each and every day for generations. The water would require treatment into the next century. Facilties, pipes will falter over the years and there will be no one to ensure the system is maintained.
Idaho's Lake Pend Oreille
Idaho's Lake Pend Orreille sits 25-miles downstream of this perpetual discharge. This is truly one of last large pristine lakes remaining in the west. Why would anyone expose the beautiful lake to the relentless pollution of hardrock mining?
Grizzly Bears
A small population of grizzly bears still inhabit the region surrounding the proposed Rock Creek Mine. These bears face an uncertain future even without the Mine. Habitat loss and poaching has cornered these bears into the last small corner of wildness that remains in this region, the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. And now they are proposing to mine the last of their habitat.
Bull Trout
Bull Trout are a threatened species, they inhabit the region around the proposed Rock Creek Mine. The species live and spawn in Rock Creek. If the Mine ever begins operating, they will be extirpated from this drainage.
Mine Tailings
The Rock Creek Mine would create a mountain of tailings adjacent to the Clark Fork River. This pile of waste rock would cover over 300-acres, rise to over 300', and leak arsenic into the groundwater. This mountain of tailings will remain forever, need we say more.
Wolverines and Lynx
Many other species depend on the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. Impacted by the Mine would be species such as the wolverine, mountain goat, the threatened lynx, harlequin duck, and westslope cutthroat trout.
Solitude Lost
The junction of the west and east fork of Rock Creek is currently quiet, symbolic of the wilderness that lies over the hill. It is here the mine proposes to build their mill facility, complete with blasting, rock crushing, and all of the noise and dust that would accompany a massive mining operation. It is here the Mine would blast their way into the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness.
Evaluation Adit
Just up the road from the proposed mill facility is where the Mine would blast an exploratiory tunnel into the side of the mountain. Here directly adjacent to the wilderness they hope to initiate phase one of the proposed Rock Creek Mine. It is also here within stones throw of one of the most pristine wildlands in nation the Rock Creek Mine hopes to begin the destruction, leaving behind a massive pile of waste rock.
East Fork Bull River
The East Fork of Bull River is the last stronghold of bull trout. It is here the future of the species in the region will make their last stand. It is also here that the proposed Rock Creek Mine would expose their habitat to long term drainage from their mine cavity.
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