{"id":17025,"date":"2021-10-19T17:29:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T21:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=17025"},"modified":"2021-10-19T17:29:08","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T21:29:08","slug":"montana-free-press-fort-belknap-indian-community-seeks-federal-review-of-new-mining-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/10\/19\/montana-free-press-fort-belknap-indian-community-seeks-federal-review-of-new-mining-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Free Press: Fort Belknap Indian Community seeks federal review of new mining claims"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Zortman-Landusky<\/a>
According to the Fort Belknap Indian Community, untreated waste from the former Zortman-Landusky mine complex is flowing into the reservation in Montana. Photo courtesy Fort Belknap Indian Community<\/figcaption>\r\n
New mining claims at Zortman prompt push for investigation<\/div>\r\n
The Fort Belknap Indian Community and conservation groups say a 48-hour lapse in decades’ worth of mine claim bans allowed Bozeman-based Blue Arc LLC to stake 10 new mining claims.<\/div>\r\n
Tuesday, October 19, 2021<\/div>\r\n
By Amanda Eggert <\/div>\r\n
Montana Free Press<\/DIV>\r\n
montanafreepress.org<\/A><\/DIV>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe Fort Belknap Indian Community and three conservation groups are petitioning the Interior Department\u2019s Office of Inspector General to investigate the cause of the department\u2019s failure to keep a mineral withdrawal \u2014 a regulatory tool that blocks federal agencies from approving new mining claims \u2014 in force at the Zortman-Landusky reclamation area near the Fort Belknap Reservation. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nAs a result of a 48-hour gap in protections on October 5 and 6, 2020, 10 new mining claims were filed in an area still grappling with an acid mine drainage clean-up that has cost more than $77 million to date and is expected to continue for generations.

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\u201cWe deserve an explanation,\u201d FBIC President Andrew Werk Jr. said in a press release about the petition<\/a>. \u201cWhether the Department\u2019s failure to properly implement the closure was an honest \u2014 albeit careless \u2014 mistake or the result of intentional misconduct, the consequences are enormous for the health and wellbeing of our people. With stakes this high, we must have accountability.\u201d

<\/p>\r\n

Complaint: Fort Belknap Indian Community [PDF<\/a>] <\/div>\r\n
\r\n
fortbelknap100521<\/a><\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIn the 1980s and 1990s, 2.5 million ounces of gold were mined<\/a> from the Zortman and Landusky mines with cyanide heap leaching. In 1998, the mines\u2019 owner Pegasus Gold filed for bankruptcy, leaving federal and state agencies with a massive clean-up effort. As a result of past gold and silver mining operations, the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes have been dealing with surface and groundwater pollution as well as metals pollution throughout the Little Rocky Mountains in north-central Montana for more than 20 years.

<\/p>\r\nIn the complaint<\/a>, the groups argue that given the research and planning that\u2019s required before a person or corporation can stake and file a mining claim, it\u2019s suspicious that Bozeman-based Blue Arc, LLC was able to take advantage of the 48-hour window between the expiration of the old order and the implementation of a new one to stake the 10 new claims.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nIn 2000, to facilitate ongoing reclamation work, the Interior Department issued a five-year order preventing entities from filing new mining claims on the site\u2019s 3,530 acres of public land. After three subsequent five-year extensions, the department was preparing to issue a 20-year mineral withdrawal to go into effect in October 2020. But because notice of the 20-year order was published in the Federal Register three days after the expiration of the preceding 5-year order, there was a two-day gap during which new mining claims were not prohibited. The Federal Register is a government log book where rules, proposed rules and executive orders pertaining to federal agencies are publicly noticed.

<\/p>\r\n\"Zortman-Landusky<\/a>

According to the Fort Belknap Indian Community, untreated waste from the former Zortman-Landusky mine complex is flowing into the reservation in Montana. Credit: Courtesy of Fort Belknap Indian Community<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nConservation groups Montana Environmental Information Center, Earthworks and Trout Unlimited also signed on to the FBIC letter. The petitioners are asking the Interior Department\u2019s Inspector General to investigate why the 20-year ban on claims wasn\u2019t filed in a timely manner, who was responsible for filing the order, if there was communication between the Bureau of Land Management or the Interior Department and Blue Arc or its executives, and what steps are being taken to address the lapse. They also want to know why the new 20-year mineral withdrawal order applies to a smaller geographic area than the preceding order, and who made that decision. The new withdrawal area applies to 842 fewer acres than the previous one.

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\u201cThe public has spent tens of millions of dollars to reclaim and control the pollution at the former Zortman-Landusky mine site. The fact that someone went up there and staked new <\/em>mining claims is a slap in the face to the taxpayer, the Fort Belknap Tribe, and the clean water of the area,\u201d Montana Environmental Information Center staff attorney Derf Johnson said in a release.

<\/p>\r\n\r\nIn the early 2000s, Luke Ployhar, who owns Blue Arc with his wife, purchased mining claims totaling more than 1,000 acres from the Pegasus bankruptcy trustee. Ployhar now owns much of the former mine. He told Montana Free Press Wednesday that Blue Arc isn\u2019t currently mining the site, but that records he obtained from Pegasus indicate there is mineralization on his new claims. Part of the reason he staked the claims on public property, he said, is to \u201csecure a buffer zone\u201d around the land he owns. Ployhar said there is potential for future gold mining at the site based on the outcome of an application for mineral exploration that\u2019s currently before the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the results of future sampling.

<\/p>\r\n \"Zortman-Landusky<\/a>

According to the Fort Belknap Indian Community, untreated waste from the former Zortman-Landusky mine complex is flowing into the reservation in Montana. Photo courtesy Fort Belknap Indian Community<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nPloyhar added that as far as he knows the claims were processed by the Bureau of Land Management without issue.

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\u201c[The withdrawal] lapsed. We did what we were allowed to do,\u201d he said \u201cMy understanding is that [BLM] has gone through and everything is good.\u201d

<\/p>\r\n\r\nPloyhar said he wasn\u2019t aware that the agency was planning to implement a 20-year mineral withdrawal order once the preceding five-year order expired.

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