Lawsuit filed against Forest Service over approval of Stibnite mine

A coalition of conservation groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Forest Service for its approval last month of an open-pit gold mine in the headwaters of the South Fork of the Salmon River near McCall.

The Stibnite Gold Project, which has been pursued by Perpetua Resources for “more than a decade,” according to the company’s website, got the green light from the Forest Service on Jan. 3.

Perpetua Resources intends to reopen and expand the historic but long-dormant gold, silver and antimony mine near the tiny enclave of Yellow Pine, Idaho. The company says the mine will employ hundreds and has the potential to yield 4.8 million ounces of gold and 148 million pounds of antimony — a mineral used in munitions and deemed to have national security significance.

According to the groups that filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court of Idaho on Tuesday, the project would “jeopardize public health and clean water, harm threatened species and permanently scar thousands of acres of public land in the headwaters of the South Fork Salmon River.”

The effects of the project “are simply unacceptable,” said John Robinson, public lands and wildlife director for the Idaho Conservation League, in a news release. “Given the recent layoffs at the Payette National Forest, we are concerned about the Forest Service’s ability to manage this high-risk project in addition to all their other responsibilities.”

The lawsuit points out the project is adjacent to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, and a majority of the project land is administered by the Payette and Boise national forests.

“Portions of the Project area already suffer from the damage and toxic legacy of mining,” according to court documents.

Also, a Forest Service study of the project, which was conducted before the agency approved the mining operation, said it would lead to environmental degradation of the area and the no-action alternative was the “environmentally preferred alternative.”

Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service for allegedly violating the Endangered Species Act “by failing to protect threatened Chinook salmon, steelhead, bull trout, wolverine and whitebark pine from the mine,” according to the conservation groups’ news release.

The named plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Save the South Fork Salmon, Idaho Conservation League, Idaho Rivers United, Earthworks, Center For Biological Diversity and American Rivers.

The proposed mining project is within the Nez Perce Tribe’s ancestral homeland, and the tribe accused the Forest Service in January of violating its treaty rights by approving the project.

The tribe isn’t a plaintiff in the suit filed Tuesday, but stated its opposition to the project in a news release distributed Tuesday.

“The Nez Perce Tribe shares the conservation organizations’ deep concern for the fish, wildlife, and other resources placed at imminent risk by the Stibnite Gold Project,” said Shannon F. Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, in the news release. “For the Tribe, these are treaty-reserved life sources central to the identity, culture, and wellbeing of the Nimiipuu, the Nez Perce people.

“The Tribe also shares the conservation organizations’ dismay with the Forest Service for authorizing the Stibnite Gold Project without curing the significant legal problems identified by the Tribe in comments submitted to the Forest Service,” Wheeler said. “Their authorization violates bedrock environmental laws and the federal government’s treaty and trust responsibilities to the Tribe.”