Kilgore, Idaho, is a small town approximately 60 miles west of Yellowstone National Park. With a population of just over 300 people, Kilgore is marked by a single, distinctive general store. The landscape around the town is rich with family farms and ranches, thick stands of aspen, and fields of wildflowers. Country roads punctuated by cattle guards cross the lowlands and, in the hills, above – foothills to the Centennial Mountains, along the crown of which winds the Continental Divide – elk, grizzly bear, wolverine, Canada lynx, and whitebark pine make their home.

Connecting all of this – from the highest of the Centennial peaks to the lush agricultural lands below – are cold, clear streams home to the famously prized and sensitive Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Creeks that rise as springs in the Centennial foothills feed not only the local Kilgore farms and ranches, but also the rivers and aquifer that support and sustain the mighty agricultural economy of Idaho and provide clean drinking water supplies to communities for miles and miles downstream.

It is in these same foothills, within the beautiful Caribou-Targhee National Forest, that Canadian mining company Excellon Resources plans to methodically dismantle the forested hillsides in search of gold. If Excellon finds sufficient gold resources during the exploration phase of the Kilgore Gold Exploration Project (Project) to make extraction profitable, they plan to build an open-pit, heap-leach, cyanide gold mine, threatening to mar the landscape forever and pollute this quiet corner of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with toxic, industrial mining waste.

The Project’s proximity to West Camas Creek and other headwater streams of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer makes it particularly risky; a mining accident here would cause an environmental disaster not only near the project site, but for miles downstream. Water is the natural resource most commonly and dramatically impacted by mining accidents, and a mining accident at Kilgore would likely impact both surface and groundwater supplies. These impacts could result in reductions in water quantity, degraded and impaired water quality, and/or other consequences such as acid mine drainage, cyanide heap leaching, or even a cyanide contamination event. Cyanide is a chemical asphyxiant that can kill people and wildlife when ingested, breathed, or absorbed through the skin. The use of cyanide in open- pit, heap-leach, cyanide gold mining poses a special threat, not only because it never goes away, but also because it can be difficult to capture and treat once it has been released into the environment. Cyanide is so dangerous, the practice is banned next door in Montana.

Additionally, there would be negative impacts to aquatic wildlife resources, including but not limited to the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, a species native to Idaho and designated as a “Sensitive Species” by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Northern and Intermountain Regions.

With other factors such as climate change and rapid population growth in the Greater Yellowstone region already weighing heavily on our extremely limited water supplies, it is unlikely that our water resources can bear the additional pressures of unnecessary mining activities and certainly not the catastrophic consequences of a mining accident.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but unless we fight together for Idaho’s way of life, this mine will move forward. Thankfully, Idaho hunters, anglers, farmers, ranchers, outdoor recreationists, and families are coming together to stop this open-pit, heap-leach, cyanide gold mine to protect Idaho’s outdoor heritage and way of life. To learn how you can get involved, visit PROTECTKILGORE.ORG.