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Mike Horse Mine Cleanup

In the 1940s, miners used metals-laced tailings to build the Mike Horse Dam at the origins of the Blackfoot River on Beartrap Creek near the Continental Divide. In 1975, the tailings dam blew out, dumping deadly levels of lead, copper and zinc into the Blackfoot. The mine’s corporate owner, ASARCO, rebuilt…
Protecting Selenium Standards in Lake Koocanusa

When the Montana Board of Environmental Review (BER) chose to void Montana DEQ’s protective water quality standard for selenium in Lake Koocanusa, it put the interests of a foreign mining company over the interests of Montana. The review board’s decision seems solely to benefit Teck Coal, the Canadian mining company that is…
Grant Creek Restoration

With new, intensive development happening along its lower reaches, the future of Grant Creek depends on community investment in the creek’s rich cultural and ecological functions before it’s too late. Right now, we have an amazing opportunity for holistic, headwaters-to-…
Clean Smurfit Now

The Smurfit-Stone pulp mill operated on the banks of the Clark Fork River near Frenchtown from 1957 to 2010, discharging enormous amounts of wastewater into the river. More than a decade after the mill closed, the 3,200-acre industrial site is still leaching harmful chemicals into the river and our aquifer.
Exempt Wells Loophole

In 1973, the Montana Legislature passed the Water Use Act, which created a process for permitting new water rights. To reduce permitting burdens on small, individual users, it exempted groundwater use for “domestic, agricultural, or livestock purposes.” This meant applicants did not have to prove that the water was physically…
Cabinet Mountain Mines and Bad Actors

The Cabinet Mountains Wilderness provides refuge for native fish and wildlife and its streams flow with some of the purest waters in the lower 48. It also contains one of the largest copper/silver deposits in the world. We work with our partners Earthworks, Earthjustice, Rock Creek Alliance, and Montana Environmental…
Milltown Dam Removal

For 100 years, Milltown Dam blocked the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers near Missoula, trapping toxic sediments that washed down from mines in Butte and contaminating local drinking water wells. Now, the dam is out, the mining waste is gone, fish can swim back upstream, and two mighty…