Smith River Makes Endangered List

Montana’s treasured Smith River was recently named one of the Most Endangered Rivers in America for the second year in a row by a Washington D.C.-based conservation group.

Photo Credit: Ben Coulter

The major threat to the waterway comes in the form of a proposed copper mine near a major tributary for the Smith River drainage, according to the annual report published by American Rivers. The groups annual report, published to their website Monday, “highlights ten rivers whose fate will be decided in the coming year, and encourages decision-makers to do the right thing for the rivers and the communities they support.”

The proposal for the Black Butte Copper Project comes from Canadian mining company Tintina Resources, Inc., and the project site is located adjacent to Sheep Creek, approximately 20 miles north of the small town of White Sulphur Springs, MT. While the proposal means a much-needed economic stimulus to the community, it also carries serious threats to the environment. The process of removing copper from the ground poses the risk of contamination to nearby surface water, groundwater and drinking water, according to the American Rivers report.

Photo Credit: Ben Coulter

The majestic Smith River corridor runs almost 60 miles, between massive limestone cliffs beneath the Little Belt Mountains on one side and Big Belt Mountains on the other. The Smith is noted for healthy wildlife populations including deer, elk, moose and black bear as well as brown, rainbow and cutthroat trout, and according to the American Rivers report, Sheep Creek produces more than half of the tributary-spawning trout in the drainage.

Because the Smith River experience is so popular for fishing, camping and river therapy in general, a permit is required for floating year round. A statistic from the American Rivers report shows 8,096 people applied for 1,175 permits in 2015, and an estimated $10 million in annual revenue is generated by floating and fishing.

The Washington D.C-based American Rivers organization is a clean water advocacy group that has worked to protect and restore wild and damaged rivers since 1973 through on-the-ground projects and their annual Most Endangered Rivers campaign, according to their website. The Smith River is No.4 on the list behind the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin in Alabama, Florida and Georgia, the San Joaquin River in California and the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and Maryland.