With the dismissal of a “bad actor” lawsuit following the retirement of former CEO Phillips Baker Jr., mining company Hecla said it is ramping up exploration in the Cabinet Mountains area south of Libby.

But a coalition of Indian tribes and environmental groups said it will keep fighting to enforce Montana laws that prevent “irresponsible mining” and leave Montanans to pick up the tab.

Hecla describes itself as the largest silver mining company in the country and as owning “a number of exploration and pre-development projects in world-class silver and gold mining districts throughout North America.”

It acquired the Montanore project near Libby in 2016.

The coalition of Indian tribes and environmental groups had sued the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in 2021 alleging the state agency wasn’t enforcing the state’s “bad actor” provision in relation to Baker. That law bars corporations with outstanding obligations from embarking on new projects without paying old cleanup costs.

The groups alleged the DEQ shouldn’t let Hecla move ahead with “bad actor” Baker at the helm. Baker was one of the former leaders of Pegasus Gold Incorporated, which filed for bankruptcy in 1998 and left behind more than $80 million in reclamation and water treatment obligations, the groups alleged.

In May 2024, however, Hecla announced Baker had retired after nearly 23 years of service and was also stepping down from the board. It said the Board of Directors appointed Catherine “Cassie” Boggs, its board chairperson, as interim president and CEO.

In a statement, Boggs thanked Baker for his “valued contributions” to the “silver industry overall” and said a search for a permanent leader would start. She said mining would continue.

“Hecla’s day-to-day mining operations will carry on unabated with the talented and dedicated staff we have at all our operations and at our headquarters,” Boggs said in a statement. “Senior management and I will continue to support and guide our operations and personnel throughout this leadership transition.”

Baker could not be reached late Monday afternoon through a message via LinkedIn about the circumstances under which he retired. His profile page said he left Hecla in May and is in a “career transition.”

Filed by Earthjustice, the lawsuit hinged on Baker’s leadership at Hecla, however. On July 11, the tribes and conservation groups filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss their claim, but said they would continue to work to prevent “irresponsible mining.”

Earthjustice represents the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fort Belknap Indian Community, Ksanka Elders Advisory Committee, Earthworks, Montana Environmental Information Center, Clark Fork Coalition, Rock Creek Alliance, Montana Conservation Voters, Montana Trout Unlimited, Save Our Cabinets, and Cabinet Resources Group in the “bad actor” litigation.

The coalition said Baker has “no continuing roles at Hecla, no continuing connections, and no continuing responsibilities.” The tribes and conservation groups also said Baker’s retirement would help ensure Montana’s environment is safeguarded “from the worst mining practices.”

“The Cabinet Mountains hold an important position in the relationship between the Ksanka (Kootenai), Salish, and Qlispe people, and all of creation, with the Ksanka holding a particularly special connection to the area,” said Vernon Finley, director of the Kootenai Culture Committee and member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, in a statement.

“While this place is now safe from one bad actor, we stand firm in our resolve to protect our ancestral territory from mining that threatens our sacred places and landscapes. The lands, waters, and wildlife in the Cabinet Mountains are too precious to let our guard down.”

The groups had asked a Lewis and Clark County District judge to rule the DEQ had violated its enforcement obligations under the Metal Mine Reclamation Act and force the agency to enforce the “bad actor” provision against Hecla and Baker.

In their recent news release, the coalition said it had compelled DEQ to bring the initial enforcement action, but then brought its own after the DEQ “abruptly abandoned its enforcement effort.”

“Those of us who live or recreate in the Cabinet Mountains of northwestern Montana know how important it is to protect this special place from irresponsible mining executives,” said Mary Costello of the Rock Creek Alliance and Save Our Cabinets in a statement.

“We are relieved that Phillips Baker is no longer at the helm of Hecla Mining Company, but regret that Montana DEQ reversed direction and chose not to enforce the Bad Actor law.

“Regardless of what mining company or mining executive arrives next on the scene to push through an ill-conceived mining scheme, we will be ready to protect the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness and our clean water.”

The coalition said DEQ filed a “bad actor” enforcement action against Hecla and Baker in 2018, and a district court ruled that DEQ had jurisdiction. However, it said “DEQ announced it was dropping the case, citing the election of a new governor,” among other reasons; the Daily Montanan previously reported DEQ argued the case would take too much “time and money” to pursue.

In an email Monday, a spokesperson for the DEQ said the agency had no comment.

Last week, Hecla announced the Lewis and Clark County District Court had dismissed the lawsuit, as the coalition requested. It said the groups had wanted DEQ to deny exploration and mining permits to Hecla’s subsidiaries.

“With Mr. Baker’s recent retirement from the Company, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit,” Hecla said.

However, Hecla said the groups had made “bad actor” allegations “not based on (Baker’s) roles with Hecla, but because of his prior leadership positions” and defaults at Zortman-Landusky, Basin Creek and Beal Mountain mines.

“With the dismissal of the ‘bad actor’ lawsuit, the company is focused on advancing permitting of the Libby Exploration Project, a silver-copper project located 23 miles south of Libby, Lincoln County, Montana, (about 50 miles north of the company’s Lucky Friday Mine in Idaho),” Hecla said.

The news release from Hecla also said it owns other patented mining claims and “numerous unpatented mining claims at the project, and has submitted a plan for review to the U.S. Forest Service.

“The plan of operations, if approved, would allow for dewatering and rehabilitation of an existing 14,000’ adit (mine entrance), completion of 10,500’ of new underground development, and the commencement of exploration activities at the project,” Hecla said.

But the groups that filed the lawsuit said they will continue their work to protect “some of Montana’s most iconic species in the Cabinet Mountains,” including grizzly bears, wolverines, and bull trout, which the proposed Montanore Mine “gravely threatens.”

“Now that Phillips Baker is no longer at the helm of Hecla, Montanans can breathe just a bit easier knowing that a bad actor is not attempting to open another mine in Montana,” said Derf Johnson, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, in a statement.

“However, even without Baker, Hecla still intends to open a dangerous mine in Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, and we are not going to give up in assuring that the mine never proceeds.”

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is telling people they should be prepared to run into grizzlies anywhere west of Billings – but it remains unclear whether a long expected mingling of Wyoming and Montana bears is imminent. 

“We can’t tell with certainty that we haven’t had bears moving between those two populations,” Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Greg Lemon told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. 

Most recently, there was a confirmed sighting early this summer of a grizzly in southwest Montana’s Tobacco Root Mountains. That’s a place where grizzly bears haven’t been spotted in decades.

It’s typically young male grizzlies that take off on long-distance adventures. But the age and sex of the Tobacco Roots grizzly hasn’t been determined, Lemon said. 

Does that mean grizzlies are moving toward a major mingling between two populations centered in Wyoming and Montana? Probably not quite yet, a Wyoming bear expert said. 

“The Tobacco Roots are a stepping stone” toward genetic exchange, retired federal ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody told Cowboy State Daily. 

“But it’s a fragile stepping stone,” he added. 

‘Island Ranges’

So far, the West’s two main populations of grizzlies have remained essentially separated. 

About 1,100 bears make up the Northern Continental Divide population, radiating out of Montana’s Glacier National Park. 

And a roughly equal number of grizzlies are thought to live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, centered in the heart of northwest Wyoming’s Yellowstone country. 

Those two populations could be within 60 miles of each other in some places, and a grizzly in the Tobacco Roots opens new possibilities, Neal said. 

The Tobacco Roots are one of the isolated “island ranges” in southwest Montana, he added. If a bear could get across open county to the south, it could get into continuous mountain ranges that would take it into Wyoming. 

And adding to the intrigue is the fact that biologists haven’t determined where the grizzly seen traipsing through the Tobacco Roots came from, Lemon said. 

Lacking DNA samples from the bear, there’s no way of confirming which population it came from. But the Greater Yellowstone population is the one closer to that area, he said. 

Growing Population Or Genetic Exchange?

By the mid-1970s, the grizzly population in the Lower 48 was barely hanging on by a claw. Fewer than 100 of them were left, including some holed up in Yellowstone National Park. 

Grizzlies in the Lower 48 were put under federal endangered species protection in 1975. 

Since then, they’ve increased in numbers and range across Wyoming, Montana and parts of Idaho. In north-central Montana, they’ve been pushing far out into the open prairies. 

Last summer, there was excitement when a grizzly was spotted on the Montana side of the Pryor Mountains. It was near the Wyoming state line, in a place where grizzlies hadn’t been seen since the late 1800s. 

 And there was a huge buzz this spring when a grizzly bear was confirmed in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. It was a lone bear that was killed by wildlife agents after it preyed on cattle near Ten Sleep. 

With so many grizzlies showing up in so many places, many have argued it’s well past time to delist them and turn management of the bears over to the state. 

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has plans in place for a grizzly hunting season if and when that happens. And agency director Brian Nesvik told members of the U.S. Congress last year that he favors delisting grizzlies. 

But Neal and other conservationists argue that full recovery won’t happen unless and until there is significant genetic exchange between the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone populations. 

The sheer number of bears doesn’t matter if that genetic exchange isn’t happening, they claim. 

Neal added that getting bears “into Central Idaho” – in the remote Bitterroot-Selway region – is also key to recovery. 

Delisting efforts reached a fever pitch last year, with Wyoming’s U.S. Congressional delegation and Gov. Mark Gordon all clamoring for it to happen. Then those efforts fizzled. 

But delisting could be warming up again. During recent hearings in Washington, D.C., Wyoming Republican U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman again told federal wildlife officials that grizzly delisting is overdue. 

‘The Yuppies Haven’t Found It Yet’

Though a bear in the Tobacco Roots, as well as grizzlies popping up elsewhere raises hopes, the arguments over delisting could still be deadlocked. 

But wildlife overpasses might break the impasse, Neal said. 

As the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone grizzlies continue to inch ever closer to each other, Interstate highways in Montana remain a significant barrier between them, Neal said.  

“A lone bear occasionally making it across I-90” isn’t going to do the trick, he said. 

What might pave the way for widespread grizzly romance between populations would be an overpass or overpasses across isolated stretches of Interstate 15, running between southwest Montana and the Idaho state line. 

“That’s one of the least-developed parts of southwest Montana. The yuppies haven’t found it yet,” he said. 

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.

ASHLAND – Two of the state’s largest wildfires have merged even as state and federal authorities pour more resources into the battle.

The Deadman Fire and the Anderson Fire merged on Sunday, according to the Rosebud County Disaster and Emergency Services, creating a combined wildfire with a total estimated area at nearly 16,000 acres. There was 20 percent containment reported on the Deadman Fire.

The previous largest wildfire in the state near Helena, the Horse Gulch Fire, was estimated Monday at just under 13,000 acres.

The two merged fires will now be referred to as the Deadman Fire, according to fire officials. The wildfires and several others in the region were started by dry lightning on July 12 and 13, including the McGhee, Prairie Dog, Hackley, and Four-Mile fires. The total combined area of the wildfires is estimated at 22,000 acres.

A Northern Rockies Complex Incident Management Team 3 took command of these fires at 6 a.m. Monday, fire officials said. Some evacuations have been ordered.

Deadman Fire in Rosebud County forces residents to evacuate

Here’s the most current status of the fires from the Rosebud County Disaster and Emergency Services:

CURRENT STATUS
Landowners, ranchers, local fire departments, and state and federal land agencies have worked incredibly hard the past several days fighting these fires and have made significant progress. Crews and landowners have been building miles of fire lines and conducting burnout operations to gain ground. Last night, the McGhee Fire pushed northwest toward Birney. Today, the Flathead Interagency Hotshot Crew and other resources will be working to connect pieces of fire line to secure that part of the fire. The prevailing wind direction today should help. The team is assessing needs, developing a plan, and ordering resources, although as fire season picks up in Montana, resources will begin to be stretched.

WEATHER AND FIRE BEHAVIOR
Fuel moistures are low, making fire behavior erratic even without strong winds. Fire continues to carry in the grass and mixed shrubs, even overnight. Spotting may be an issue throughout the day, especially as winds increase. Hot and dry conditions are expected into the foreseeable future.

CLOSURES AND SPECIAL MESSAGES
An evacuation warning remains in place for residents along the Tongue River Road from the Tongue River Bridge at Wall Creek to the southern Rosebud County line. Specific closure information and maps on the Rosebud and/or Big Horn County Facebook Pages.

Rosebud County Disaster and Emergency Services