This is a follow-up of a story we published back in July: “The Last Place for a Mine: USFS green-lights exploratory mining in the upper Green River valley”
Dec. 6, 2018. This summer, Columbia Insight published a story about a proposed mining project near the headwaters of the Green River, which are located just outside of the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. The proposed open-pit mine has been a subject of contention for nearly a decade, pitting environmental groups like the Cascade Forest Conservancy against Canadian prospecting company Ascot Resources, which seeks to drill 63 holes from 21 drill pads in order to locate deposits of gold, copper and molybdenum.
Despite the risks that many groups say the operation would pose to the upper Green River, which is a state-designated “Wild Steelhead Gene Bank” and a source of clean drinking water for residents of the Cowlitz Valley downstream, the U.S. Forest Service announced in February that it found no significant impacts during its environmental assessment of Ascot’s exploratory drilling plan, and the agency gave consent to the Bureau of Land Management to issue prospecting permits.
Since then, opponents of the exploratory mining project have been awaiting the BLM’s inevitable stamp of approval. (Because the USFS owns the land and the BLM owns the mineral rights, receiving a hard-rock prospecting permit is a two-step process. But the two agencies generally support one another’s decisions, and it is rare for the BLM to deny permits, especially those allowing resource extraction, after the USFS gives its consent.)
In a decision that was announced earlier this week, the federal agency said it would grant two prospecting permits to Ascot. That decision, however, is subject to a 30-day appeal period that closes Jan. 2, 2019.
Wait – so this is old news??? What’s the latest since there is now a new Interior Director and she’s of indigenous heritage? I even checked out the various links and found no new information. Am I missing something? Please let me know before I label this as bad and misleading journalism.