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In Idaho, the Nez Perce Tribe is suing the federal government for approving a mine in the headwaters of the South Fork Salmon River.
The mine is Perpetua Resources' Stibnite gold mine, which will be located on the homelands of the Nez Perce Tribe. The area was the site of an active gold and antimony mine for almost one hundred years before being abandoned in the 1990s. To this day, over 10 million tons of mine tailings and other waste cover more than half the site, impacting soil, groundwater, and surface water in the area.
The Tribe is suing over a violation of treaty rights and resources in the headwaters of the South Fork Salmon River. Specifically, the Tribe signed treaties with the federal government in 1855 and 1863, granting the Tribe its sovereign rights to fish, hunt, gather, pasture, and travel.
According to Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, the Tribe had secured funding to restore the area long before Perpetua acquired interests in the mine. With the funding, it spends about $2.8 million annually to restore chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout populations and habitat in the South Fork Salmon River watershed.
Keep Parks Public tour will be in Jackson, Wyoming!
The Keep Parks Public road tour will make a special stop in Jackson, Wyoming this Thursday, September 4, to discuss how congressional threats and the Trump administration’s actions are cutting off access to America’s outdoor spaces.
The public forum will be held at the Teton County Public Library at 1:00pm, ahead of a congressional field hearing in Grand Teton National Park on Friday aimed at “modernizing” the Great American Outdoors Act.
Find details about location, speakers, and more on the Keep Parks Public website, and follow Keep Parks Public on Instagram.
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We promise we will do whatever we have to do to protect our free-flowing river now. We will do anything and everything possible to keep that connection for the ones that come after us.”
