In this 2011 photo, Jessica Walz, with Bob Dingethal, right, both from the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, points to the area where Ascot Resources wants to do exploratory drilling above the Green River and on the border of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
The public will have another opportunity to comment on a proposed exploratory drilling permit near Mount St. Helens.
The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service plan to re-release the environmental review of the Ascot Resources Goat Mountain exploratory drilling permit application, probably next week, bureau spokesman Michael Campbell said. The final day for public comment on the environmental assessment was Feb. 4, but the move will open another 30 day public comment period.
Ascot plans to search for copper, silver, gold and other minerals by drilling 63 holes at 23 different sites just north of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument boundary near the headwaters of the Green River.
The bureau uses several channels of communication to alert the public to the release of certain documents, but an error with the bureau’s printer led to a failure to adequately inform all interested parties to the fact that the environmental review was out and the comment period was open, Campbell said.
Forest Service regulations don’t allow comment periods on proposed projects with an environmental assessment to be extended, so the agencies opted to start the process over and re-release the assessment.
“We’ll reissue it, effectively having the same net effect as extending the comment period,” Campbell said, noting the forthcoming assessment will be identical to the previous one. “We’ll honor the old comments. Those will all factor into our final analysis.”
The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service have received about 2,000 comments to date.
“We are happy that the comment period has been extended, but disappointed that they waited until after the comment period to let us know” that the document would be re-released, said Matt Little, executive director of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, which opposes the project. “Many of our groups rushed our comments in order to get them in by deadline.”
The Gifford Pinchot Task Force, 20 other conservation and environmental groups and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, sent letters to the Oregon and Washington state offices of the bureau asking for an extension. Indie rock band Modest Mouse even stepped into the fray with a banner on its website urging fans to oppose the project.
The Gifford Pinchot Task Force previously sued to block the drilling and claims the new document is identical to the one struck down in court in July 2014. That proposal had been approved by both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management in 2012.
In the fall of 2014, Ascot, the bureau and the Forest Service filed notice to appeal but dropped the motion that December.
The Forest Service is charged with managing the surface resources around the proposed drilling site. Half of the mineral resources below ground are controlled by the bureau; the other half is controlled by Ascot.
Leading up to the new environmental assessment, Campbell said the bureau went through the court’s opinion “with a fine-toothed comb” to make changes.
“We did all those things to make sure every last issue raised during the scoping was addressed. First and foremost that it was scientifically consistent with the forest plan,” he said.
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