The Costs of Environmental Mitigation Measures: A Case Study of Noranda's Montanore Project

The heightened concern over the environment which has developed in recent years has caused activities on National Forest lands to come under more intense public scrutiny. This has been especially true for activities oriented toward the production of commodities. Cattle grazing, mining, timber harvesting, and oil and gas leasing and drilling have all been increasingly subject to appeal and litigation. As a result, environmental analyses being conducted by the Forest Service have become more comprehensive, and measures to reduce or eliminate adverse impacts on resources have been given more attention. The costs of such environmental mitigation measures can be significant even when viewed in the context of the millions of dollars a company may spend, for example, to develop a mine. Using the Montanore Project in northwestern Montana as a case study, this paper examines the costs of alleviating some of the detrimental effects which may occur as a result of a mining operation. Although many of the general issues that have been raised about Montanore are common to other mineral projects, the scale of the project, as well as the fact that the ore body is within a wilderness area, the site is in grizzly bear habitat, and the surface waters are considered to be pristine, all combine to make Montanore particularly challenging from an environ- mental standpoint. Much of the information which follows is contained in the most recent version of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) which is scheduled to be published in several weeks. Based on agency and public comments, some of the information presented in the paper will change before the Final Environmental Impact Statement is issued in 1991.