Baucus raises red flag on gold exploration near Glacier

Montana Sen. Max Baucus has fired off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning more mining threats to the North Fork of the Flathead.

This time it's gold mine exploration by the Max Resource Corporation in the Howell Creek drainage and in the Crowsnest, where potential mines could be just under 10 miles north of the border. Max Resources late last month said it would do more gold exploration in the Flathead Valley.

"I urge you to request that Canada conduct a full, federal environmental assessment of the Max Resource exploration project, with the United States, before exploration continues. This announcement in July, on the heels of the UNESCO meeting, underscores the urgent need to engage with Canada in bi-lateral negotiations to establish permanent protections for the Flathead, which I urge you to begin as soon as possible," Baucus wrote to Clinton.

The Canadian Embassy responded to Baucus in an e-mail to the Hungry Horse News.

"Canada has federal and provincial regulations in place for the evaluation of resource development projects. We believe that these processes are rigorous and lead to good decision making," said Jonathan Sauv , acting spokesperson for the Canadian embassyembassy. "Therefore, Canada disagrees with any presumption that the Waterton-Glacier World Heritage Site is in danger from resource development activities in Canada."

But the international community remains unconvinced. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization announced last month it was sending a delegation of scientists to Glacier National Park and the Canadian Flathead to examine the threat of mining to the North Fork.

The river makes up the western boundary of Glacier.

MAX CLAIMS its samples in the Crowsnest returned "extraordinarily high gold analysis' in the 1990s and now it is looking to do more exploration work.

An actual mine in the area would go through a provincial review process, but exploration permits in the region are fairly easy to get. Companies have poked and prodded the sensitive landscape for decades looking for everything from phosphate to coal and natural gas.

"Poking around" is what Max Resources plans to do, notes a company spokesman.

"At this stage, it's only exploration," said spokesman Leonard McMillan. He said Max is an exploration company, not a mining company. McMillan said any plans for a mine are a long way off, though there was 'some mineralization worth looking at."

Max Resources in a release said it would invest more than $1 million in the exploration.

McMillan said the Howell exploration done last year "wasn't that interesting."

The region is also threatened by a coal mine proposal by Cline Mining Co. and there's still concern that British Petroleum will do coal bed methane development in the region, even though the company has said it wouldn't.

But even exploration comes with costs. Roads are punched in across the landscape and well rigs are dug in what is largely an uninhabited region — the only permanent homes in the region are small camps and an outfitter camp. Most of the land is owned by the provincial government.

Conservation groups on both sides of the border are calling for permanent protection of the Flathead Valley in Canada, as the dispute over mining in the region has gone on for decades.