An Australian mining company, Sentinel Metals, has just announced plans to develop a massive gold mine alongside the upper Blackfoot River. The Columbia Gold Project is using the assay results from a earlier proposed gold mine on this spot in the late 1990s, which was cancelled because of the terrible environemental impact it would have had on the river.
To quote their press release, “Our strategic objective is to build a portfolio of quality gold production assets to feed a central processing hub – accelerate Columbia into production and pursue selective, value-accretive acquisitions in the region”.
Montana Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), always a fan of miniing operations in the state, has approved an initial drilling phase, allowing a number of diamond drill holes to pull core samples from up to 13,000' deep. Their next step will be to file for a permit to begin commercial mining, with an open pit 900' deep, 1,500' wide, and about a half mile in length. That can't be done without a massive impact to the river and the entire watershed.
Your Big Blackfoot Riverkeeper is leading the effort to halt this project, but is an expensive fight!!.
PLEASE HELP US FIGHT THIS DISASTEROUS MINE
BEFORE A SHOVEL HITS THE GROUND!
On September 19, 2025, a Land Use and Zoning Compliance permit was filed to create a 64-acre gravel pit operation with a crushing mill and hot-mix asphalt plant on the southern bank of the river four miles upstream from where it joins the Clark Fork River..
This gravel pit and asphalt plant threatens to industrialize the Blackfoot River corridor, pollute its waters, and change this landscape forever.
Over the past decade, anecdotal observations on rivers throughout western U.S. showed noticeably reduced aquatic insect hatches. The Blackfoot was no exception. Not just our legendary salmonfly hatches, but our mayfly and caddis hatches have noticeably thinned in many reaches of the river.
Getting a statistically and scientifically accurate measure of our macroinvertebrate population is critically important as a first step.in defining the scope and cause of this apparent decline.
To that end, BBRK has been working with The Salmonfly Project (TSP) since 2024 through financial assistance and boots on the ground. TSP conducts research to understand where and why aquatic insects have declined, what they need to stay healthy, and how we can better protect them.
TSP selected the Blackfoot River as one of six rivers in Montana to be studied, TSP is now in their second year of sampling bugs from a series of locations along the Blackfoot that have good historic bug counts going back almost 40 years.
While the process of gathering bugs is fairly simple, performing the subsequent taxonomy on the collected samples to identify specific species and how many of each were found is a complex, time consuming and expensive process that is still underway.
We are hoping to get o[ur first population trend results later this year.
Watch this space..
BBRK is was a key driver to establish this trail, one of only two in Montana. We worked with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) to create the Big Blackfoot River Trail, a series of reservation-only campsites dedicated to float-in camping. These have no vehicle access, and require recreationists to practice complete pack in/pack out, zero impact campcraft.
The program started in 2012 with campsites at four locations in the middle section of the drainage, creating a 40-mile stretch of river that can be floated in multiple days with the assurance of a reserved campsite waiting for you at the end of the day..
Under FWP's auspices, BBRK monitors the sites, provide public awareness of the program, and gather usage statistics to help the ongoing expansion of the trail.
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