Swan-Blackfoot group renews collaborative wilderness bill

November 19, 2015 by Laura Lundquist

Residents of the Blackfoot and Swan valleys want to designate more wilderness around them, but they say it would be part of a bigger plan to preserve their lands and rural way of life.

On Wednesday night, more than 100 people packed into the Missoula Public Library conference room to learn about a renewed push by the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project to add 83,000 acres of wilderness to the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Mission Mountain wildernesses.

Lead-laced silt is revealed at the back of the Mike Horse Mine impoundment as DEQ crews work to remove the 1940s-era structure.                             Photo by Laur… — Lead-laced silt is revealed at the back of the Mike Horse Mine impoundment as DEQ crews work to remove the 1940s-era structure. Photo by Laura Lundquist

DEQ removes faulty Mike Horse Mine impoundment

July 07, 2015 by Laura Lundquist

Montana is loaded with mining operations that have gone awry, leaving the state to deal with toxic waste and contaminated water. The copper mines of Butte and the Zortman-Landusky Mine near the Fort Belknap Reservation are two of the more egregious cases. But a small 1940s-era lead mine near Rogers Pass has its own notoriety.

In 1975, the Mike Horse Mine impoundment failed in the headwaters above Lincoln, causing 200,000 cubic yards of toxic waste to slide down the canyon and into the upper reach of the Blackfoot River. Four decades on, scientists still find traces of lead and zinc from the mine in the river, and fishermen complain that trout populations have not fully recovered.

For about the past decade, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Forest Service have worked in fits and starts to reclaim the Mike Horse Mine and the spill area below. This summer, the derelict impoundment is being demolished.

Read more in my story on the DEQ reclamation and the mine's history here.

Trumpeter swan populations inch toward recovery

June 25, 2015 by Laura Lundquist

Two more trumpeter swans grace the waters of the Blackfoot Valley, although they were a little hesitant to dive into freedom, maybe sensing the responsibility they carry.

Honking like Ford Model T’s and waving their splayed black feet, two yearling trumpeter swans were carried to the edge of Jones Lake, where volunteers gently placed them in the water on Saturday.

But rather than swimming away as their predecessors have done, the birds started waddling back toward their cages and the crowd of a dozen or so onlookers.

Finally encouraged to return to the water, they swam out to follow more than 165 other swans that have been released on the lake over the past decade, thanks to a partnership led by the Blackfoot Challenge.