Hecla History: Not so neighborly, after all

Let’s get some facts straight about Hecla Mining Co. and its corporate track record. When Hecla purchased Revett Mining in June 2015 as part of its acquisition of the proposed Rock Creek Mine, the company also took ownership of the Troy Mine, which had been mothballed because of underground rock falls and dipping copper prices. Hecla immediately closed the mine and began preparing to reclaim the site, as required by Montana mining law.

Come spring of 2017, Hecla started the reclamation work, which includes capping and revegetating the tailings impoundment, filling mine portals, maintaining water treatment, demolishing buildings, and grinding up paved roads. At the time, Luke Russell, Hecla’s VP of External Affairs, said, “The Troy Mine gives us an opportunity to show the community what modern mine reclamation can be.”

And it gives Hecla an opportunity to show Montanans their shoddy corporate values. Does that explain Hecla’s announcement on July 31, 2018 putting much of their Troy reclamation work on hold? Why? Because Montana’s Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is enforcing the bad actor law against Hecla’s CEO Phillips Baker, Jr.

The bad actor law refers only to past polluters who can’t mine in Montana until they clean up the messes they left in our state. In Hecla’s case, Mr. Baker is the past polluter because of his prior role as CFO of Pegasus Gold – the company that introduced Montana to open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mining and then went bankrupt, leaving toxic mining wastes and permanently poisoned creeks across Montana.

The public has paid over $43 million to date for Pegasus’ cleaning bill– and will continue to pay an estimated $2.3 million/year in perpetuity to treat the water contaminated by Baker’s former company. Baker moved on to Hecla, which now seeks permits to mine copper and silver deposits beneath the Cabinet Mountains.

This winter when DEQ learned of the Hecla/Baker connection to the Pegasus fiasco, DEQ said, “not so fast” on those permits. Until the Pegasus messes are cleaned up, and taxpayers are made whole, or Baker is not involved.

DEQ put Hecla on notice in March 2018. Hecla reacted with a shut-down of Troy Mine clean-up actions, plus a lawsuit against the agency.

Good Neighbor or Bad Actor?

Take Grouse Creek Mine in Idaho.

When this “modern” mine began operating in 1994, Hecla boasted of a zero-discharge tailings impoundment with no significant environmental impacts. Less than a year later, the tailings impoundment failed, leaking nearly 10,000 gallons of cyanide-bearing tailings into area waters, including habitat for endangered salmon, steelhead and bull trout.

In 1996, another spill, this time 16,000 gallons of cyanide-laced water. Hecla shut down the unprofitable mine in 1997, but the problems continued. In 1999, the EPA and the Forest Service stepped in and ordered Hecla to take emergency measures to prevent a catastrophic release of cyanide, mercury, and heavy metals from the failed impoundment.

This was not an isolated event:

• In 2011, at the Bunker Hill Superfund Site in Idaho, Hecla paid a $263 million settlement related to its liability for massive environmental contamination from lead and arsenic-laced mine tailings; liability it had disputed for 15 years in court.

• In 2015, Hecla was fined $600,000 for multiple violations at its Lucky Friday mine, including seepage of metal-laden water from the tailings pond into a nearby tributary.

Another corporate shell game does not fool Montanans. We have 100+ years of experience with mining companies promising the moon and delivering dust. Those experiences inspired our sensible laws to protect the land and water that underpin our $7 billion outdoor recreation industry. Money that stays here in Montana, supporting our families, communities, and treasured places.

The label, “bad actor,” is an admonition, a warning to literally “clean up your act” to do business in our treasured state.

Message to Hecla before you become my neighbor: If you want to mine in our state, under our precious wilderness creeks and streams, respect our laws that reflect hard lessons learned and put the environment and people ahead of corporate profits.

Martha D. Humphreys,

Noxon