SANDPOINT - The comment period on the proposed Montanore copper and silver mine in northwestern Montana has been extended to Dec. 21.

The U.S. Forest Service enlarged the comment period last month to ensure comments and concerns are addressed in the mining proposal's final environmental impact statement.

A supplemental draft environmental impact statement is available for download from the Kootenai National Forest website (www.fs.usda.gov/kootenai).

Montanore Minerals Corp., a subsidiary of Mines Management Inc., proposes tunneling beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness to access a 120-million-ton ore body. Surface operations would be outside the wilderness boundary.

Save Our Cabinets, an offshoot of the Rock Creek Alliance, is challenging the project due to impacts to grizzly bear habitat and potential de-watering of the east forks of Rock Creek and Bull River, and partial de-watering of Rock Lake.

Although the project is located in the Libby Creek drainage, Jim Costello of Save Our Cabinets and Rock Creek Alliance, said the mine's impacts will extend to the Clark Fork drainage.

"There are significant impacts on the Clark Fork side," Costello said.

Costello said it's unclear if the Montanore proposal will give some leverage against the Rock Creek mine proposal on the basis of cumulative impacts to grizzly bear and bull trout habitat.

"The public needs to recognize that these are two massive projects and they're going in, basically, adjacent to each other. It's not just one mine anymore and the reach of these projects is significant," he said.

• Written comments on Montanore can be sent to Lynn Hagarty, Kootenai National Forest, 31374 U.S. Highway 2, Libby, MT 59923-3022 or emailed to r1_montanore@fs.fed.us.

Rock Creek fight far from over, group says

SANDPOINT - The Rock Creek Alliance remains unfazed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the developers of the proposed Rock Creek Mine.

"It was expected," Jim Costello of Rock Creek Alliance said of the ruling. "We always had that 1-percent hope that something good would come of it, but it didn't happen."

Although Fish and Wildlife and Revett Minerals prevailed in the appellate ruling, Costello emphasizes that the project still notably lacks an environmental impact statement, a record of decision and a discharge permit.

"We'll challenge whatever they issue," Costello said. "That's a given."