Zach Urness

Statesman Journal

GASQUET, CALIF. — Efforts to build a nickel mine near the headwaters of a river system famed for pristine water quality have gone quiet during the past year, but they haven’t gone away.

Red Flat Nickel Corp., a Portland firm owned mostly by a company in the United Kingdom, has continued to pursue a mining project in the Smith River watershed despite pressure from lawmakers and federal agencies.

The company proposed exploratory drilling in 2012 to determine the feasibility of building an open pit mine on its 2,350-acre “Cleopatra” site in southwest Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

The proposal ignited a firestorm due to its close location to the North Fork Smith River, a stream known for clear water, wildlife habitat and recreation.

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The North Fork begins in Oregon, crosses the California border and joins the larger river system near Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

“People come from around the world to vacation in this beautiful country, and it makes no sense to locate a strip mine near a river that means so much to so many,” said Grant Werschkull, executive director of the Smith River Alliance in Crescent City.

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Concern about the project led to a two-year ban on new mining claims and a halt to current mining on 100,000 acres of federal lands in southwest Oregon — including the Cleopatra site.

The ban, known as a mineral withdrawal, was at the request of Oregon lawmakers and is intended to preserve the river’s condition while legislation in Congress had the chance to make the withdrawal permanent. The withdrawal could be extended to five years.

That legislation was introduced in the House by Reps. Jared Huffman, D-California, and Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, and in the Senate by Oregon’s Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. The bill wouldn’t immediately terminate the mining project, but it would impose a more “rigorous validation process before mining is allowed to proceed.” That process could, in effect, kill the project.

Red Flat called the withdrawal an “unlawful overreach” in documents submitted through the international law firm Squire, Patton and Boggs.

“The proposal … directly contravenes the national interest by improperly limiting access to domestic sources of minerals that are critical to the U.S. infrastructure,” the document said. Red Flat Nickel Corp. “has suffered years of administrative foot-dragging as a result of political pressure … to prevent mining on the subject acreage.”

Along with nickel, the company is looking for cobalt, chromium and scandium, said Obie Strickler, an Oregon geologist who has worked as consultant for Red Flat.

“These are very important minerals that just about everyone uses on a daily basis for phones, computers, and lots of other things in everyday life,” Strickler said in an interview last January. “The project would create a high economic benefit in Curry County, and there’s value to doing it (in the United States), because we have tougher environmental rules.

“This would be a very well-engineered project with safeguards put into place to stop any degradation of the environment.”

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Strickler’s appeal has mostly fallen on deaf ears. Public comments in writing and at town hall meetings in Gold Beach and Grants Pass have been overwhelmingly opposed.

Despite that sentiment, Red Flat doesn’t appear to be backing down.

“They have not gone away,” said Barbara Ullian, coordinator for Friends of the Kalmiopsis, which opposes the mining. “These lands are so important — and have such high ecological value — that to consider forever altering them through this very destructive mining is just heartbreaking.”

Zach Urness has been an outdoors writer, photographer and videographer in Oregon for eight years. He is the author of the book “Hiking Southern Oregon” and can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Zach Urness or @ZachsORoutdoors on Twitter.

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