{"id":963908,"date":"2018-08-29T02:09:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T02:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=963908"},"modified":"2018-08-29T02:09:19","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T02:09:19","slug":"heclas-silver-copper-project-in-remote-montana-overcomes-hurdle-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=963908","title":{"rendered":"Hecla\u2019s silver-copper project in remote Montana overcomes hurdle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:16px\">By  <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/heclas-silver-copper-project-remote-montana-overcomes-hurdle\/\">Valentina Ruiz Leotaud<\/a><\/span>  <\/p>\n<p>Kootenai National Forest, an agency that manages 154 forests and 20 grasslands in the U.S., announced today that they have approved the first phase of Hecla Mining&#8217;s silver and copper mine in northwestern Montana.<\/p>\n<p>The Rock Creek Mine would be built beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, an area of glaciated peaks and valleys that take their name from the area&#8217;s box-like rock formations. Grizzly bears and wolverines inhabit the terrain.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the KNF&#8217;s approval for the project, the Associated Press <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/2b5739d3751c4c0495d231ee3464a531\/US-agency-gives-initial-OK-to-Montana-mine-tied-up-in-court\" rel=\"noopener\">reports<\/a> there is no clarity as to when work could begin at the remote site because of an ongoing legal dispute between Montana environmental regulators and Hecla (NYSE: HL).<\/p>\n<p>Back in March, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/hecla-mining-sues-montana-told-clean-starting-new-projects\/\" rel=\"noopener\">accused<\/a> Phillips S. Baker Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Idaho-based firm, of being in violation of the state&#8217;s \u201cbad actor\u201d law because of ongoing pollution caused by the now-defunct Zortman Mining Inc. and Pegasus Gold Mining Inc., where Baker once worked. Hecla replied with a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/hecla-mining-sues-montana-told-clean-starting-new-projects\/\" rel=\"noopener\">legal challenge<\/a> against the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>The company has chances of prevailing, given that the \u201cbad actor\u201d law has only been used once before, and Hecla&#8217;s CEO is the first top executive to be scrutinized under it. However, even in that scenario, there is uncertainty around the miner&#8217;s plans to explore 20 acres to determine the feasibility of a full-scale, 500-acre operation because an operating plan has to be previously approved by the federal government.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/heclas-silver-copper-project-remote-montana-overcomes-hurdle\/\">Hecla&#8217;s silver-copper project in remote Montana overcomes hurdle<\/a> appeared first on <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/\">MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/heclas-silver-copper-project-remote-montana-overcomes-hurdle\/\" target=\"_blank\" id=\"rssmi_more\"> &#8230;read more<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>From:: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/heclas-silver-copper-project-remote-montana-overcomes-hurdle\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Hecla\u2019s silver-copper project in remote Montana overcomes hurdle\">Infomine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud Kootenai National Forest, an agency that manages 154 forests and 20 grasslands in the U.S., announced today that they have approved the first phase of Hecla Mining&#8217;s silver and copper mine in northwestern Montana. The Rock Creek Mine would be built beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, an area of glaciated peaks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[360],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=963908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=963908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=963908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=963908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}