Video from an Eco-Flight on July 22, 2026, shows road work and drill pad construction underway. The Blackfoot River is visible to the north at the end of the video (on the right side of frame).
The newest gold mining proposal.
In the spring of 2026, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality approved an Environmental Assessment regarding exploratory drilling at the Columbia Gold Project owned by Sentinel Metals, located in the Blackfoot River's critical headwaters just east of Lincoln. Operated by an Australian corporation with international executives, Sentinel Metals priorities undoubtedly favor foreign investors over local interests.
While any financial gains are destined for out-of-state entities, the environmental risks and permanent consequences will be shouldered squarely on our local communities and economy. The company’s website boasts that the project contains an “Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate of 23.6 million tons grading 1.34g/t Au for 920,000 ounces of contained gold” and that “the current resource is just the beginning.” To put this into perspective, 23.6 million tons of ore is equivalent in weight to 63 Empire State Buildings. The impacts of such a project would be similarly enormous, and the relative consequences to our landscapes and water sources would follow.
The Blackfoot River has faced gold mining threats in the past.
2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. Although the 1992 film adaptation brought the Big Blackfoot River’s world-class coldwater fishery global fame, pollution from a century of mining, logging, erosion, and especially the 1975 Mike Horse mine tailings dam failure—which dumped lead, copper, and zinc into the watershed—prevented the movie from being filmed on the Blackfoot itself.
As mining threats persisted through the 1990s, Montana voters passed ballot initiative I-137 to ban open-pit cyanide heap leach mining. Citizens resoundingly rejected an attempt to repeal this ban in 2004. Simultaneously in the 1990s, landowners, conservation groups, and state agencies began working in concert to foster a sustainable working landscape that balances ecological health with local economic resilience for the benefit of the Blackfoot River watershed community.
These decades-long efforts are bearing fruit. The area is now a model for collaboration in watershed restoration, showcasing recovered native trout populations and healthy riparian zones. The Blackfoot River is recognized as a world-class fly-fishing destination, and it bolsters a powerful regional recreation-tourism economy. This progress is now threatened by Sentinel Metals’ industrial gold mine, which would reverse these hard-won efforts and jeopardize the benefits they bring.
