The Red Thunder Oral History Project

The General Mining Act of 1872 is a United States federal law that authorizes and governs prospecting and mining for economic minerals, such as gold, platinum, and silver, on federal public lands. This law, approved on May 10, 1872, codified the informal system of acquiring and protecting mining claims on public land, formed by prospectors in California and Nevada from the late 1840s through the 1860s, such as during the California Gold Rush. [Wikipedia]

Fort Belknap Indian Reservation was created by an Act of Congress on May 1, 1888 and the Fort Belknap Agency was established at its present location, four miles southeast of the present township of Harlem, Montana. [Fort Belknap Indian Community]

A federal commission led by George Bird Grinnell signs an agreement with the Fort Belknap Indian Community purchasing a 49 square-mile tract of line that encompassed the Little Rocky Mountains. During negotiations for the treaty, Grinnell and other members of the commission told Fort Belknap Indians that they would not receive rations if they did not sign the agreement. Within months of the agreement being signed and received by Congress, mining prospectors flooded the Little Rockies and rapidly built the mining districts of Zortman and Landusky.

1979 Pegasus Gold Corp. and its subsidiary, Zortman Mining Inc. (ZMI), build two connected cyanide heap-leach mines named after the original prospectors, Zortman and Landusky. The companies promise not to mine sulfide ore, which creates a lethal brew called acid mine drainage when exposed to air and water. [The rise and fall of a gold mining company, High Country News]

Before opening, mine owner Pegasus Gold hired a spokesman to assure the public that the company would run an efficient and non-polluting business. Pegasus also promised 70 jobs and a $2 million annual payroll. State regulators were so impressed they did not require extensive environmental studies, Trout Unlimited’s Farling said.

Within three years of cranking up, however, pollution had leaked from the property. By 1993, selenium, a metal associated with mine waste, began to show up in German Gulch, where an almost pure strain of native cutthroat trout lives. [Toxic legacy haunts Montana; What can SC learn?, The State]

Soon after, Red Thunder Incorporated, along with a similar organization called Island Mountain Protectors and the Fort Belknap Community Council, appeal this decision to the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA). Their appeal was denied on December 19, 1990.

August 22-25, 1991: American Indian Traditional Environmental Conference held by Red Thunder at the Chief Nosey Recreation Center in Lodgepole; supporters from as far away as Ontario, New York, and Texas participate in the conference.

During the early 1990s, a handful of Native American activists founded a grassroots, reservation-based environmental organization known as Red Thunder, Inc., a non-profit organization. The purpose of Red Thunder was to fight for the sacred Little Rocky Mountains on the south end of the Fort Belknap Indian reservation, and preserve the natural environment.

Red Thunder and it's allies also made some documentaries to help educate the public and solicit support for their cause. One was “Indian Tears of Love.”

This amendment proposed to more than triple the amount of disturbed land at the mine sites.

The State of Montana filed a supplemental complaint soon after. The Fort Belknap Community Council, the Assiniboine Tribe, and the Gros Ventre Tribe filed a complaint in a District Court for various violations of environmental legislation. These two complaints would eventually be consolidated.

The decree outlined $37 million in civil penalties; monitoring, mitigation, and reclamation procedures for ongoing mining; and other forms of redress for the parties damaged by the Pegasus mines. Notably, the settlement was reached so that Pegasus could continue mining in the Little Rockies, just in allegedly safer ways.

The appeal was filed by the Fort Belknap Community Council, the Gros Ventre Tribe, the Assiniboine Tribe, Island Mountain Protectors, and the National Wildlife Federation.

Pegasus reorganizes under the name of Apollo Gold. Apollo Gold liquidated thirteen of sixteen Pegasus subsidiaries, including ZMI, abandoning the Zortman and Landusky mines and leaving surface reclamation and water treatment completely to state and federal agencies.

Despite the damage mining has caused to the Little Rockies and without input from the local tribes who'll be impacted, a Bozeman-based company’s application for an exploration license to remove 1,000 tons of rock from an inactive gold mine near Zortman has been approved by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. [Read more about it here.]