THE BITTERROOT RIVER NEEDS YOUR HELP RIGHT NOW!
The greatest threat to the the health and vitality of the Bitterroot River currently is the prospect of a Rare Earth Element mine in the headwaters of the West Fork of the Bitterroot River in the Sheep Creek and Johnson Creek drainages. The threat first emerged in 2022 and the clouds have simply been growing larger and darker as time passes. If we wait until the storm breaks it may well be too late.
To follow the developments of the company’s latest moves aimed at expanding their hand sampling efforts to full-blown exploration and extraction click the following links:
BRPA has already taken action. We began taking water and soil samples on Sheep Creek, Johnson Creek and the West Fork of the river in the fall of 2024 and continued through 2025.
View a story about it in the Bitterroot Star:
https://bitterrootriver.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Pristine-waters-of-the-West-Fork.docx
To view our latest Sampling and Analysis Plan click the following link and then click on Project documents:
To view the actual laboratory results go back to Home Page, click on Bitterroot River Health Check and then click on Lab Results.
Establishing a baseline prior to any ground breaking activity is important. It serves as a foundation for continued monitoring in the area if the mining activity should proceed and may be used to identify any negative impacts related to the mining project at an early stage so that these impacts may be mitigated or eliminated as the mining proceeds.
This will benefit the public by protecting the headwater streams, the West Fork and the Mainstem of the Bitterroot River from potential contamination by toxic metals (including potential radioactive contamination) and nutrients associated with REE mining operations. This, in turn will help protect not only the aquatic life and fisheries of the streams and the river in the upper West Fork but all the economic, recreational, and social values associated with the use of those waters.
HISTORY OF THE CLAIMS AND THE NATURE OF THE THREAT
Since 2022, U. S. Critical Materials has annually filed a Notice of Intent to conduct hand sampling of its claims in the area. The proposed arera of operation encompasses 336 lode claims representing approximately 10 square miles of total land package and the company asserts that initial exploration activities have identified more than 50 carbonatite dikes in the Sheep Creek district. The claims are on multiple-use ground administered by the U.S. Forest Service.
The company has filed a Notice of Intent to conduct hand sampling int the area annually since 2022. The results have shown the presence of neodymium and praseodymium as well as cerium, dysprosium, europium, gadolinium, lanthanum, niobium, scandium, strontium, samarium, and gallium. Important ore minerals include ancylite, allanite, low-thorium monazite, and columbite.
According to the Harvard International Review there are two primary methods for REE mining, both of which release toxic chemicals into the environment. Both methods produce mountains of toxic waste, with high risk of environmental and health hazards. For every ton of rare earth produced, the mining process yields 13kg of dust, 9,600-12,000 cubic meters of waste gas, 75 cubic meters of wastewater, and one ton of radioactive residue. This stems from the fact that rare earth element ores have metals that, when mixed with leaching pond chemicals, contaminate air, water, and soil. Most worrying is that rare earth ores are often laced with radioactive thorium and uranium, which result in especially detrimental health effects. Overall, for every ton of rare earth, 2,000 tons of toxic waste are produced. According to the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy Regional ecosystems can be significantly altered by the presence of mines, both physically and chemically. Site preparation, access roads, and ancillary facilities lead to direct—and often absolute— destruction of the proximate environment, while pollution from mine processes and storage of residual tailings can lead to widespread chemical imbalances and toxic contamination.
REE mine tailings contain processing chemicals, salts, and radioactive materials. Tailings are particularly problematic in REE mining, because of the significant waste-to-yield ration. (Filho 2016; Xiang 2016). For every ton of REEs that are produced, there are 2,000 tons of mine tailings, including 1 to 1.4 tons of radioactive waste. Tailings are most commonly stored in isolated impoundment areas called tailing ponds. These ponds require complex management, especially if the tailings contain high concentrations of uranium or thorium. Poor construction or catastrophic failure can lead to long-term and widespread environmental damage and contamination of surface or groundwater (Filho 2016).
Other significant sources of pollution include aerosols and fugitive dust from tailing impoundments, which are created from cutting, drilling, and blasting rock. This pollution can accumulate in surrounding areas (Filho 2016), causing respiratory issues and also contaminating food sources—as plants absorb the airborne pollutants.
The comapny claims that tailings are not an issue because no tailings will be stored on site. But the fact is that they plan on using tailings to gravel the roadways in the mine tunnels and to fill voids in the mine, basically using the mine shaft itse;f as a toxic storage pit. They also admit that groundwater seepage into and through the mine may occur. To see their plan click on the following link and then click on project documents:
To top things off, it is well documented that a significant amount of the mineral actinolite is intimately associated with the minerals USCM would be targeting. Actinolite can be asbestiform in a class known as amphibole asbestos, which is even more toxic than the more usual type of asbestos. In 1960 it was first reported that Sheep creek actinolite “forms masses of radiating fibers surrounding other crystals”. Tremolite, closely related to actinolite which has killed hundreds of people in and around Libby, is an amphibole asbestos. Dust containing amphibole asbestos can travel far and wide and is very difficult to ever clean up. Prevention is the only solution. Drilling exploration is dusty business. The company claims that the Idaho National Laboratory has not identified any asbestos in the ore. But they did not say whther the lab tested for it or not and have not made any test results public.
Phillip Ramsey a scientists with experience in the Super Fund recovery efforts on the Upper Clark Fork due to past mining and founder of the Bitterroot Clean Water Alliance warns that there’s a high probability that mining the Sheep Creek claims will eventually include a large open-pit mine. The company claims that they have no plans to do any open pit mining, but nothing stops them or some future owner of the claims from changing those plans.According to Ramsey, “Every profitable rare-earth element mine is an open-pit mine, and they’ve all had radioactive leaks.”
Great video and interview concerning the implications of a mine at the headwaters of the Bitterroot River with Philip Ramsey who has studied mine reclamation. Click HERE
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BRPA
P.O. Box 8
Stevensville, MT 59870
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