Canyon Initiates Unapproved "Reclamation"

For years, Canyon Resources’ Kendall mine has been unreclaimed. For years, Canyon Resources has re-fused requests by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to increase its reclamation bond at the Kendall mine to ensure that reclamation occurs. For years, Canyon Resources has refused to pay the cost of producing an environmental analysis leading to a comprehensive reclamation plan for the Kendall mine.

So imagine the surprise when, at the end of June, Canyon and its subsidiary, CR Kendall Corp., announced that they were resuming the cleanup of the mine. Canyon said it was proceeding with regrading and capping exposed leach pads. Canyon is doing this despite the fact it doesn’t have a State-approved reclamation plan for the mine.

Further, Canyon is doing all this work even though it knows DEQ has nearly finished a draft environmental impact statement designed to lead to a comprehensive plan for all the reclamation work remaining at the mine. The draft EIS has been continually delayed by lack of funding because Canyon refused to pay for the document as is required.

Kendall mine manager Jim Volberding said that the company didn’t want to wait any longer to clean up the site (as if time had suddenly became an important issue).

Unfortunately, the regrading work Canyon is doing could create a water quality problem. Disturbing the material on the leach pads could cause a spike in water pollution downstream if not done properly.

The capping of the leach pads is a more serious issue. Topsoil at the mine site is scarce. Canyon says it will be capping the leach pads under a plan developed in 2000 but never approved by DEQ. If Canyon proceeds and the current EIS identifies a better method for capping the leach pads, the caps will need to be removed, wasting valuable topsoil.

Warren McCullough, chief of DEQ’s Environmental Management Bureau, expressed the same concern: “We’ve got some issues with the timing of what they’re proposing to do with this work. We would prefer that if they’re determined to go ahead and do the work that they would simply do the regrading and stop there.”

Not coincidentally, Canyon has been the focus of much attention because it has contributed more than $700,000 to Initiative 147, the repeal of Montana’s ban on new open-pit, cyanide-leach mining (see story on page 1). Canyon’s desire to see I-147 pass stems from wanting to open Montana’s largest ever open-pit cyanide heap-leach mine on the banks of the Blackfoot River.

Canyon has been criticized for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pass I-147 so that it can develop a new mine, when it consistently refuses to reclaim the Kendall mine. One might conclude that Canyon’s sudden spurt of reclamation at Kendall is just a shallow attempt to mislead the Montana public in order to generate more support for I-147.