Agency deals big setback to St. Helens copper mine

A controversial plan for a copper mine near Mount St. Helens was dealt a serious blow Wednesday when the federal Bureau of Land Management said it won't lease the land to the mining company after all.

After a barrage of public opposition, the BLM reversed a preliminary decision it made a year ago to issue the lease to Idaho General Mines, which has since become part of Colorado-based General Moly.

The new announcement surprised and delighted opponents, who had argued the sensitive land near the headwaters of southwest Washington's Green River was no place for a big mine.

"We stood up and demanded that BLM keep inappropriate development out of sensitive lands, and fortunately they listened," said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who had helped lobby against the mine.

Since last year, the BLM received 33,900 comments from the public, with 99 percent of them opposed, said agency spokesman Michael Campbell.

General Moly officials did not respond to a request for comment.

The roughly 900 acres in question are in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, near the northern edge of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Much of the land was purchased in the 1980s by a conservation group, the Trust for Public Lands, which turned it over to the Forest Service for protection.

But only half the mineral rights to some of the land were acquired for the Forest Service, leaving the rest available for a mining company.

The ruling doesn't entirely wipe out the chances of a mine. General Moly could appeal, or it could go straight to the Forest Service and seek permission to start exploratory drilling even without the BLM lease.

The BLM also didn't issue a flat rejection. Instead, it denied the lease for now, saying the mining company hadn't provided enough information to decide whether a mine would be appropriate.

But Emily Platt, executive director for the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, an environmental group, said that the BLM decision makes pursuing the mine like "beating a dead horse."

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com