St. Louis Creek is located approximately 20 miles up the Ninemile Creek drainage. The St. Louis Creek watershed is 2,819 acres in size, with 8.5 miles of stream in a southwest flowing drainage. Over 90% of the land within the watershed is managed by the Lolo National Forest.
St. Louis Creek was part of the larger Ninemile mining district and was periodically placer mined between 1874 and the mid-1900s. The Joe Wallit, or Frances Copper Mine is designated as a strip mine and lies at an elevation of 4,500 to 4,600 feet. The mine was worked primarily in the early 1970’s for copper, gold and silver with 500 feet of trenching, 150,000 tons stripped, and 3,000 tons of ore shipped. The mine was listed as developing and producing a 50 ton per day mill capacity by 1974. The mining operation was terminated in 1981 and, bond monies left by the claimants were insufficient for full reclamation. All mining claims were closed in 1995.
The impacts of mining at the Joe Wallit site covered an area roughly 15-20 acres and include 68,300 cubic yards of waste rock. The site is approximately 1,200 feet long (east to west) and 600 to 800 feet wide in places. (see Photo 1). Significant environmental effects exist at the site, including a large open, eroding cut in the hillside and a pond with standing water (see Photo 2). Furthermore, the middle portions of the waste rock dumps are being actively eroded by the East Fork of St. Louis Creek (see Photo 3), and the lower edges of the waste rock dumps are being eroded by mainstem St. Louis Creek. (see Photo 4). A small settling pond is leaching arsenic (31 mg/kg) and copper (938 mg/kg) into the creek. There is currently a pipe flowing into the creek from this pond, but this drainage is presumably resulting from the channeling of hillslope runoff created by the open cut (see Photo 5) and not an actual point source discharge, such as an adit.
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1. Joe Waylett mine site (looking West) |
2. Joe Waylett mine site (looking East) |
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3. East Fork St Louis Creek confined by mine tailings |
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4. Eroding mine tailings |
5. Surface runoff |
In 2010, Trout Unlimited, Lolo National Forest and Missoula County initiated reclamation work at the site, removing mine waste from the floodplain and creating an on-site repository. Approximately 2,000 feet of streambank was restored and revegetated, and 500 feet of streamchannel completely reconstructed. A culvert on the access road was removed to reconnect fish passage for westlsope cutthroat. The project will be monitored for revegetation success and the impact of mine waste removal on the aquatic system.
