Environmental groups challenge approval of central Idaho gold mine still needing permits

BOISE, Idaho — A coalition of environmental groups sued the Trump administration this week to try to thwart the approval of the Stibnite Gold Project, a planned gold and antimony mine in Central Idaho.

Owned by Perpetua Resources, a Canadian mining company with offices in Idaho, the open-pit mine project received U.S. Forest Service approval in the waning days of the Biden administration last month. While the project is still waiting on a federal discharge permit and several state environmental permits, full-scale digging is scheduled to begin in 2028.

Six conservation groups, including the Idaho Conservation League and the Center for Biological Diversity, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in U.S. District Court over concerns that federal officials failed to follow laws that protect the environment. Environmentalists are concerned that the project, which would use toxic chemicals to extract gold, could damage sensitive ecosystems and dwindling salmon populations near the border of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.

Located about 40 miles east of McCall at the site of decades-old mine remains that for years have leeched toxins into the Salmon River watershed, the area has previously been considered for federal superfund designation.

“The Stibnite Gold Project is the equivalent of high-risk, open-heart surgery for the South Fork Salmon River headwaters, and the watershed will be worse off as a result, not better,” John Robison, public lands and wildlife director for the Idaho Conservation League, said in an emailed statement.

The planned mine also is located within the Nez Perce Tribe’s traditional fishing and hunting grounds guaranteed under long-standing treaty rights with the U.S. Although not involved in the lawsuit filed this week, the tribe has similar environmental concerns and has previously sued Perpetua over the project.

“These are treaty-reserved life sources central to the identity, culture, and well-being of the Nimiipuu, the Nez Perce people,” Shannon Wheeler, their tribal chair, said in an emailed statement responding to the lawsuit, which called out the Forest Service for its approval of the mine. “The tribe will take all necessary steps to defend its treaty-reserved rights and life sources.”

Perpetua estimates there are 4.8 million ounces of gold at the mine, which is valued at about $13 billion. It also includes about 148 million pounds of antimony, a critical mineral important to U.S. defense and clean-energy technologies.

The company’s controlling shareholder is billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson, a major Republican donor who was on the shortlist to become Treasury secretary for Trump’s second term, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Already, Perpetua has spent $400 million on developing the project, company officials reported earlier this month. Of that, more than $17 million went toward some initial cleanup of the site, as required by the Environmental Protection Agency. Perpetua has pledged to restore streams in the mountain valley once its mining work is finished.

“The Stibnite Gold Project has undergone a rigorous, science-based environmental review over the course of eight years, and we are confident in the U.S. Forest Service’s ability to defend its (decision),” company spokesperson Marty Boughton said in an email to The Idaho Statesman.

“The Stibnite Gold Project is critical to our national security and is poised to provide hundreds of family-wage jobs, restore habitat, reconnect fish to their native spawning grounds, clean up legacy contamination, improve water quality and establish the only domestically mined source of antimony. The project offers the abandoned mine site the only viable path to near-term cleanup. These benefits are too important to be unnecessarily delayed,” she added.

The company declined to specifically respond to the Nez Perce Tribe’s concerns.

Among the dozens of executive orders President Donald Trump has issued since taking office in January, he has declared a “national energy emergency” to justify fast-tracking more than 600 permits. On that list is the outstanding federal discharge permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Stibnite gold mine.

Environmental groups condemned Trump’s emergency declaration, which comes as domestic energy production is at record levels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“The Trump administration appears to be gearing up to use false claims of an ‘energy emergency’ to fast-track and rubber-stamp federal approvals for projects across the country that will be destructive to America’s wetlands, waterways, and communities,” David Bookbinder, director of law and policy at the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a news release, calling the move illegal.

Trump’s order calls for higher production of crude oil, natural gas, uranium and coal — but did not mention renewable sources like wind and solar energy.

The lawsuit against the Stibnite project asks the U.S. District Court of Idaho to invalidate its federal approvals for the mine and bar it from moving forward. The other environmental groups involved are Save the South Fork Salmon, Idaho Rivers United, Earthworks and American Rivers.

“This lawsuit is about protecting the South Fork Salmon River watershed from a toxic gold mine that would destroy vital habitat for salmon and bull trout along with this breathtakingly beautiful place,” Marc Fink, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in the news release. “The agencies need to focus on cleaning up the toxic mining pollution that’s already here, not make things worse by green-lighting decades more of it.”