A proposal to explore for copper and other minerals on public land west of Helena has garnered pushback from environmental groups who say the timeline for the federal government’s review leaves limited opportunities for public engagement. The project, dubbed the Blue Copper Project, involves n early 11,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land between Avon and Ellison. In addition to copper, the project backer plans to probe for gold, silver, tungsten, germanium and gallium by drilling as much as 7,000 feet deep across 121 drilling pads. The company behind the project is Falcon Copper, a mining company headquartered in Deer Lodge. Several of the materials Falcon Copper is searching for are included on the U.S. Critical Minerals List, making the project eligible for an expedited review under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation, or FAST-41, permitting framework.  “An exploration project of this scale — impacting thousands of acres of public lands, sensitive species and several imperiled waterways — deserves the highest level of scrutiny from our federal regulators,” Clark Fork Coalition Legal Director Andrew Gorder said in a Wednesday press release flagging his group’s concerns with the government’s expedited review. “Rather than rushing to approve this sweeping exploration, the Forest Service should slow down and ensure that project information is transparent and fully accessible to the public.” The proposal, outlined in a 71-page federal environmental assessment, went out for a 30-day public comment period on June 2. Environmental assessments provide a high-level overview of a project to determine whether it’s likely to have “significant” environmental impacts. They’re more rigorous than other review processes required by the National Environmental Policy Act, but less thorough than environmental impact statements.  The Clark Fork Coalition and other groups critical of the Forest Service’s handling of the project point out that, as of June 17, no public hearing on the project had been scheduled. “It’s really alarming that the Forest Service is trying to sneak this through with a 30-day comment period and no public hearing. These activities won’t just harm public lands and waters, but have the potential to also impact adjacent private landowners living in the vicinity of the proposal,” Derf Johnson, Montana Environmental Information Center’s deputy director, said in the release. “The Forest Service should slow down and make sure that the process is adequate for a project of this size.” The proposed project would lie within the Little Blackfoot River watershed and overlaps with a small section of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has listed at least two streams within the watershed inside the project boundary, Snowshoe Creek and Carpenter Creek, as impaired for issues related to the degradation of fishery habitat.  If the Forest Service issues the exploratory mining permit, Falcon would be authorized to run drilling equipment 24 hours a day, withdraw up to 24,000 gallons of water from nearby streams per day, and build three miles of new roads to accommodate mining equipment. Project opponents argue that a more fulsome review of Blue Copper’s impact on federally protected species such as grizzly bears, Canada lynx, wolverine, bull trout and whitebark pine is warranted. Clark Fork Coalition, MEIC, Helena Hunters and Anglers, Trout Unlimited and WildEarth Guardians and two nearby landowners outlined these and other concerns in a June 15 letter addressed to Hans Oakes, the Forest Service’s point person for the project. Falcon Copper could not immediately be reached for comment on the environmental groups’ request for a more rigorous public input process.  On its LinkedIn page, Falcon Copper describes itself as a company that’s focused on strengthening the United States’ long-term copper supply.  “We love America, we love the land, and we believe that we can — and should — take a sustainable approach in natural resource development, while providing local employment and an engine for sustainable economic growth,” the company’s page reads. Montana Free Press’ outreach to a Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest spokesperson for comment on the critiques that have been levied against it was not returned by Wednesday evening. News of the Falcon proposal comes a week after the Montana DEQ issued an exploratory mining permit for the Columbia Mine project located on a 430-acre parcel of private land inside the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.  That project, approved following a 24-day public comment period, is situated in the Upper Blackfoot watershed near the site of a cyanide heap-leach mine proposal that hit legal roadblocks in the late 1990s. Among other pushback, environmental groups brought a 1998 ballot initiative that banned the practice of using cyanide to separate valuable minerals from low-grade ore in Montana on the heels of public outcry over inadequate and abandoned mine clean-up at sites like Zortman, the north central Montana mine facing serious water quality threats with no end in sight.   Despite the abbreviated comment period for that project, the Columbia Mine proposal generated more than 8,700 public comments, according to DEQ.  The post Environmental groups push USFS for more public input on Blue Copper mine proposal appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less