
Smith River Protection
What can I do to help save the Smith?
The Montana Supreme Court has spoken and granted Sandfire’s permit, but regardless of the outcome we will remain staunch defenders and watchdogs of the Smith. Additionally, we are working with Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks on identifying restoration opportunities to improve water quality and quantity for the future.
MTU will continue to need your support in the coming years to protect this special place. Please visit our donation page to make a contribution today.

Smith River Protection Timeline
A visual history of our fight to protect the Smith.


Learn More About the Smith River and the Mine
-
Animas tale shows preferring jobs to safeguards can court disaster
Amazing how disasters change people’s ambivalence toward mines. According to this High Country News story, “Silverton’s Gold King reckoning,” the Colorado mining town of Silverton has regretted its original choice to oppose federal mine clean-up after the ancient mine had already created a pollution problem.
-
Modern mining? Shouldn’t U.S. law be modernized?
Mining companies such as Tintina Resources love to claim that mines will be safe, thanks to “modern mining.” But if mining has changed so much, shouldn’t Americans, and especially Montanans get a modern mining law?
-
Modern mining: The charity bait-and-switch
In addition to the common mining-company maneuver of declaring bankruptcy before having to fork out money for reclamation, another set of common ploys appears to be tax dodging and bribing local communities. The story of Cameco Corp., a uranium-mining company in Saskatchewan, is a good illustration of those.