For Immediate Release: Friday, January 3, 2025
Contacts:
John Robison, Public Lands & Wildlife Director, (208) 345-6933 x 213
Abby Urbanek, Communications & Marketing Manager, (208) 345-6933 x 214
U.S. Forest Service advances high-risk Stibnite Gold Project without recommended protections
The mining project remains an unacceptable risk to Idaho’s clean water, public health, fish and wildlife habitat, and public lands.
MCCALL, ID – On Friday, January 3, 2025, the U.S. Forest Service released its Final Record of Decision for the Stibnite Gold Project near Yellow Pine in Valley County, Idaho. The Idaho Conservation League (ICL) and others submitted 130 substantive administrative objections highlighting significant flaws in the mine plan. The approved version fails to address the water quality and public health concerns raised and fails to follow best practices that aim to protect Idaho’s environment and communities from the negative impacts of mining.
The approved plan for this open pit cyanide vat leach gold mine doubles the size of the existing disturbance to 3,265 acres and entails excavating three massive open pits. It would create 280 million tons of waste rock and include constructing a 475’ tall, 120-million-ton tailings storage facility across the Meadow Creek valley—more than 1.5 times taller than the Statue of Liberty. One of the open pits would extend more than 720’ beneath the riverbed of the East Fork South Fork Salmon River.
“The Stibnite Gold Project is the equivalent of high-risk, open heart surgery for the East Fork South Fork Salmon River, and the watershed will be worse off as a result, not better,” said John Robison, ICL public lands & wildlife director. “We are deeply disappointed that the Forest Service dismissed our suggestions to correct significant flaws in the project. Even the Forest Service’s own analysis states that doing nothing is better for the environment than building the Stibnite Gold Project.”
While resources like antimony are important, the Stibnite Gold Project is fundamentally a gold mine, not an antimony mine. Gold accounts for 96 percent of the project profits and antimony only 4 percent. There is only a three-year supply of antimony at the site and currently, any antimony mined at Stibnite would have to be shipped abroad to be refined. Perpetua received $75 million in federal funding to support antimony extraction. However, the company is not obligated to repay taxpayers, even though the gold extracted from the site is projected to generate billions in profits for its investors.
“Let’s be clear—this is a tax-payer financed gold mine,” explained Robison. “Perpetua never offered and the Forest Service never analyzed a targeted antimony mining proposal that would entail much less surface disturbance, mine waste, and overall impact. What’s more, having a small percent of antimony in a gold project should not give anyone a pass for a project that could end up doing immeasurable harm.”
Despite the issuance of the Final Record of Decision, the Project cannot be implemented until several additional key steps are completed. This includes approval from the Forest Service on additional revisions to Perpetua’s Plan of Operations, acceptance of reclamation costs estimates, and review of financial assurances (Final Record of Decision, p. 51).
Multiple state permits have also not yet been completed, such as the water right authorization for mining from the Idaho Department of Water Resources. Unfinished permits from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality include the cyanidation permit, the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, the air permit to construct, and the 401 water quality certification.
Several of the draft permits to date have not been sufficiently protective of public health and the environment. ICL and our partners have filed administrative challenges to several of these permits and are hopeful that the State will recognize the importance of this watershed to Idahoans and put the necessary protections in place. ICL will be assessing administrative legal options for any approvals that are unlawful and that put the public and our public lands at risk.
“The Stibnite Gold Project is an unfortunate reminder of why we need to reform the Mining Law of 1872 so we can protect public interests instead of undermining them,” concluded Robison.
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