Background

We’ve been tracking the proposed Sheep Creek Mine project – located in the headwaters of the West Fork of the Bitterroot River — since its inception, and we were among the roughly 500 concerned citizens and conservation groups that joined an emergency hearing in front of the Ravalli County Commissioners in December of 2025. The message was clear: the West Fork—an important headwaters of the Bitterroot River and the Clark Fork River watershed—is too precious, pristine and valuable to jeopardize. 

The Ravalli County Commissioners agreed, sending a letter to federal representatives urging the Sheep Creek Mine exploration project be removed from the Trump Administration’s “fast-tracked” FAST-41 list. A few of Montana’s Congressional representatives initially agreed as well but quickly backtracked and instead spoke out in favor of the proposed project as long as the appropriate permitting processes are followed. As a result, the project remains on the FAST-41 list. 

In mid-December, the mining company behind the project – U.S. Critical Minerals, Inc. – submitted its first Draft Plan of Operations to the Bitterroot National Forest, which should ostensibly allow the Forest Service to identify and evaluate any environmental impacts from the proposed project. Unfortunately, the company’s Draft Plan is woefully insufficient and provides almost no detail about how exploration or mining activities might impact water resources. Among other deficiencies, the Draft Plan includes: 

• no baseline information on existing groundwater or surface water resources in the area; 

• zero information about how exploration/mining activities will be conducted without impacting these water resources; 

• no information on water rights or permits needed for exploration activities; 

• no plan for stormwater management for exploration and mining activities or waste rock storage; 

• no information on how the project might impact water quality, aquatic life or fisheries within Sheep Creek or the W. Fork of the Bitterroot. 

In short, the Forest Service simply cannot evaluate the potential impacts from the project based on the information submitted. We continue to anticipate serious risks, including impacts to water quantity, water quality, fish and wildlife habitat, and the overall health of the watershed. There will be much to do in the months and years ahead, but CFC remains committed to ensuring that the Bitterroot River is protected from this misguided proposal. 

Latest Update: July 13, 2026

The Forest Service Must Require an Environmental Assessment for the Sheep Creek Mine Exploration Plan

When the Federal Permitting Council enrolled the proposed Sheep Creek Mine project into the FAST-Track program in November of 2025, the permitting process included an Environmental Assessment (EA). On July 13, 2026 an updated timeline reports ‘Environmental Assessment cancelled.’ We are concerned that removal of the EA indicates US Critical Materials, the exploration company, changed its proposal to evade environmental review and eliminate public comment.

On July 1, 2026 The Forest Service released a new Plan of Operations from US Critical Materials (USCM) which proposes industrial exploration in the headwaters of the West Fork of the Bitterroot, including blasting, drilling, fuel storage, explosives, drilling chemicals, helicopter flights, and trucking 6 million pounds of hazardous material along the river to Conner. The plan does not address how wastewater will be safely managed, how groundwater contamination will be avoided, how the operation will mitigate threats to fish and wildlife, or how the company will uphold its promises of transparency and open communication with the public.

Simply put, the current plan lacks the detail we need to assess how the resources we care about might be impacted. The US Forest Service is obligated to evaluate the impacts of the project and protect these resources on our behalf. For these reasons, we believe the Forest Service should conduct an Environmental Assessment of potential effects and prioritize a robust public comment period.

Additionally, the proposal must also be reviewed and licensed by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. Similar to the Forest Service process, proposals will have different levels of scrutiny and public engagement depending on the scale of the project and level of potential impact.

Submit Your Comments

The Forest Service has created an email address to receive comments. This is NOT the same as a formal comment period that comes with greater legal weight but allows your concerns to earn a place in the public record, especially if no public comment period is offered.

We’ve made it easy to take action in just a few minutes by drafting a letter outlining these concerns – just click the button below to view a template letter that you can edit and email to to Sheep.Creek.Comments@usda.gov.

January 15, 2026

The Clark Fork Coalition submitted comments to the Bitterroot National Forest in response to U.S. Critical Material’s draft plan of operations, which failed to provide baseline information on potentially impacted water resources, surface waters, groundwater, seeps and springs, water quality data, aquatic life, fisheries (populations and habitat) and/or sensitive or protected species such as ESA-listed bull trout and native Weslope cutthroat trout, and more. CFC holds that without this information, the Forest Service cannot evaluate the potential impacts of the project, nor can it determine whether those impacts will be significant enough to require an EIS.  

Following public comment, the mining company withdrew its Draft Plan of Operations with plans to resubmit a revised plan in the near future. CFC expects that the U.S. Critical Materials will take its obligations to protect Montana’s environment seriously and prepare a full, detailed and transparent accounting of their planned exploration activities and the potential environmental impacts for review by the Forest Service. We look forward to reviewing this information once it becomes available.