DEQ’s approval of cyanide-based mining near Norris raises concerns

Evidence abounds across Montana of the ruinous environmental legacy of cyanide-based open-pit mining.

Consider the Beal Mountain Mine west of Butte and the Zortman-Landusky mines in the Little Rocky Mountains, all Pegasus Gold debacles. Or the Golden Sunlight Mine, near Whitehall, from which pit water will need to be pumped and treated in perpetuity, or the Kendall Mine near Lewistown.  

In 1998, voters in Montana banned cyanide heap-leaching, a process developed to leach gold from lower-grade ore. That same year Pegasus Gold filed for bankruptcy.  

On Monday, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality announced it has transferred an operating permit from Majesty Mining to Bear Claw Mining Services for a gold and silver mine near Norris that will use cyanide heap leaching to extract precious metals.

The Beal Mountain Mine, once owned by Pegasus Gold Corp., is now the site of an ongoing cleanup. The $6.2 million reclamation bond Pegasus left after its 1998 bankruptcy is long gone. German Gulch Creek flows from its base into Silver Bow Creek and the Clark Fork River, and those streams are still at risk of pollution from the mine.     

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