Montana’s Smith River is renowned worldwide for its clean water, rugged canyon scenery, and blue ribbon trout fishery. The Smith is Montana’s only permitted recreational river. The permitted section of the Smith River winds 59 miles through a remote canyon in the Big Belt Mountains. Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks classifies the Smith River’s fishery as high-value, owing to its bountiful population of rainbow, brown, westslope cutthroat, and brook trout. The canyon walls of the Smith also boast some of the best examples of Native American pictographs in Montana.

A small Canadian mining start-up, Tintina Resources, has partnered with Australian mining firm Sandfire, and has submitted an application to the state of Montana to build a massive copper mine at the headwaters of the Smith River, on the banks of Sheep Creek. You can read a critique of the comments here. The mine would drop below the water table, and Tintina would have to pump water out of the mine to keep it from flooding. The pumped wastewater would contain arsenic and other toxics. Tintina’s proposed copper mine is particularly concerning because it will mine through sulfide minerals, which when exposed to air and water can react to form sulfuric acid in a process known as acid mine drainage. Tintina is also planning a major expansion beyond their original permit application, and has purchased several mineral leases and claimed several forest service tracts. Montana has a long legacy of mining projects that have contaminated our rivers and streams. The Smith River is not a location for another failed mining experiment.

Action call! Comments to DEQ on Smith River Mine DEIS due Friday, May 10th!

May 6th, 2019﻿



We are deeply troubled that the public has been granted such a paltry amount of time for reviewing and commenting on a technical document containing well-over 800 pages—this is frankly unacceptable. The public should be given a generous amount of time to make well-informed and educated contributions to the DEQ during this phase of the process, and Sandfire should do right by Montanans and allow DEQ to extend the comment period.

While experts continue digging into details of the DEIS so that we can more specifically address deficiencies within the narrow scope of the analysis, there are a number of issues that stand out. As the public weighs-in on the DEIS in comments to DEQ, there are a number of things to consider:

The Smith River generates $10 million in annual economic activity to the State of Montana. The Outdoor Recreation Industry generates $7 billion in state revenue. Outfitters will launch 73 of 1,361 total Smith River permits in 2019. Outfitters create Montana jobs, are responsible stewards, and the money they generate stays in the state and has a substantial ripple effect on the economy—airfare, hotels, travel, etc. Sandfire is an Australian-owned mining company that will pocket the lionshare of profits and cut-and-run when profitability ceases. $50 million in Montana tax dollars already goes to mine clean-up. Do we want to add a failed mining experiment on the Smith River to the list, at the cost of existing, perpetual Montana jobs? Sandfire has been clear about expanding and growing the operation into a 50-year mining district. The DEIS should evaluate the entirety of the project and its potential impacts, and not allow Sandfire to segment the analysis. The DEIS does not accurately project how much water the mine will remove from the watershed. Further, the modeling used in the DEIS does not account for how much the surface temperature will change when they replace the water they are proposing to withdraw. Explosives used in the mine will create fractures in the bedrock. These fractures will create pathways for nitrates (explosives waste) and other contaminants to flow into groundwater. Nitrates, along with an increased temperature, promotes the growth of algae. Algal growth decreases the amount of available habitat for macroinvertebrates (fish food), and gravel beds available for spawning. The cement-tailings paste that Tintina proposes backfilling the mine with will break down over time. As the cement decomposes, tailings will oxidize, which has the potential to produce acid drainage. Acid drainage could flow through fractures in the bedrock, into the groundwater, and ultimately into the Smith River. Fish population analyses are incomplete, and existing data was misrepresented. Brook and brown trout were lumped together in some reports, and sculpin populations were presented in the same graphs as trout. Size and frequency-of-length were not considered in evaluating the impact on fish populations—will a certain size class be harmed more substantially than another? This could significantly decrease reproductive success.

Email comments to tintinadrafteis@mt.gov, or send them by mail to: Craig Jones, Department of Environmental Quality, P.O. Box 200901, Helena, MT 59601.