The Cline Mining Corporation plans to remove an entire ridge above Foisey Creek.

Experts say contaminants could reach Flathead lake within 48 hours.

Flathead Lake’s water quality, fisheries and area wildlife could be seriously degraded if a Canada-based mining company gets its way, officials told a group of about 40 at a public meeting in Kalispell Monday evening.

The Cline Mining Corporation plans to remove a mountain ridge in southeastern British Columbia, about 25 miles north of the U.S. - Canada border, to extract two million tons of coal per year for 20 years, Flathead Basin Commission chair Rich Moy said during the meeting. The Lodgepole mine would be built above Foisey Creek, a tributary of Canada’s Flathead River headwaters, which flows into the North Fork along the western boundary of Glacier National Park and into Flathead Lake.

Sen. Max Baucus and Gov. Brian Schweitzer spoke to about 180 people on the same topic at a similar meeting Monday morning. Each expressed concern over the mine’s possible damage to Montana.

Moy and other panelists expressed deep concern about the proposed mine’s probable impacts on the Flathead Valley.

Richard Hauer, a professor at the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station in Yellow Bay, warned that water quality degradation in the North Fork and Flathead Lake would be all but certain if the Lodgepole Mine proceeds, based on Cline’s record of mining mishaps in a neighboring valley.

“Every one of the (six) mines in the Elk Valley has had a failure in the last 30, 40 years,” Hauer said, explaining that during a mining failure, large amounts of contaminants are released into the natural environment. Contaminants dropped into the Canadian Flathead River would flow downstream very quickly, he said. He predicted waste products from the Lodgepole Mine would flow across the border within eight to 12 hours of release and would reach Flathead Lake in 48 to 72 hours.

Hauer further predicted the amount of nitrates in Flathead Lake would increase 650 times, phosphorus 18 times, and selenium 57 times if the mine opens. Selenium, a toxic heavy metal, damages nerves and internal organs, such as the kidneys, even in low concentrations, he warned.

“We have spent millions to keep nitrates and phosphorus out of Flathead Lake,” he said. “Those efforts have contributed to making the lake one of the cleanest in the country.”

“The North Fork of the Flathead River is one of the purest rivers anywhere,” Moy added. “That’s what makes it so special.”

Mark Delaray, a fisheries biologist with Fish, Wildlife and Parks, warned that the mine could wipe out bull trout, a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Bull trout that mature in Flathead Lake swim up the North Fork to spawn in the Flathead River’s Canadian headwaters, concentrating heavily just below where the proposed mine would be built. Westslope cutthroat trout from Flathead Lake also migrate up to British Columbia.

“The (Canadian) headwaters are critical habitat” for native fish, Delaray concluded. Much more research on the fish and how the mine would affect them needs to be done, but since Cline has produced no detailed mining plan, the mine’s full effects on fish cannot be analyzed, he added.

For every two tons of coal it mined annually, Cline would leave 16 tons of waste in the Foisey Creek drainage, a tributary of the Canadian Flathead River headwaters, wildlife biologist Tim Thier said. Thier argued that the 24-hour, seven-day-a week operation would introduce new roads, heavy trucks, noise and other environmental changes that would fracture the habitat of deer, beers, moose and other species that now migrate freely back and forth across the border.

All the speakers agreed that while Montana has learned plenty about its natural resources and wildlife, British Columbia has made little effort to collect similar data on its side of the border, and that both countries need to cooperate to develop three to five years of studies on current ecological conditions. This inventory would be necessary to help both sides understand the probable impacts from the mine.

The speakers also expressed concern that if Cline starts up the Lodgepole Mine, the corporation would find it easier to open mines on other property it owns much closer to the border. Cline’s Sage Creek property lies five miles north of the border and contains about three times more coal than the Lodgepole site, they said.

The British Columbia government has never turned down a mine proposal, Moy said.

“They look for ways to make mines go forward,” he said, adding that the people of Montana need to tell the B.C. government “how important this basin is for future generations.”

“If this mine is approved, it really busts open the Flathead,” Brace Hayden, regional issues specialist for Glacier National Park, warned.

The speakers emphasized that concerned people should submit comments to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office and Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

“I really believe the only way we’re going to stop this mine is if people get really mad and deluge Gov. Schweitzer and the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office with E-mail,” Hayden said.