Stibnite Gold Project Update, May ‘26
The fight to protect the South Fork Salmon River from the proposed Stibnite Gold Project has intensified this month, with Idaho Rivers United and our coalition partners taking significant legal action, even as a major federal financing decision dealt a frustrating blow to our efforts. Here's where things stand.
We've Asked the Court to Hit the Brakes
Last Friday, IRU joined a coalition of local and national conservation groups in filing a motion for a preliminary injunction in federal court, asking a judge to halt Perpetua Resources' pending construction of the Stibnite Gold Project before irreversible damage is done.
Perpetua has announced it intends to begin "full construction" at the end of May, without waiting for the court to issue a final ruling in the underlying lawsuit we filed in February 2025. That lawsuit challenges the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for violating the National Environmental Policy Act and other foundational environmental laws and for failing to protect threatened bull trout, wolverine, and whitebark pine under the Endangered Species Act.
Critically, the Forest Service's own analysis concludes that the project area would be in worse condition after the mine than before it, even if Perpetua's restoration work goes according to plan.
Among the first major construction activities Perpetua plans to undertake is the "Burntlog Route", a new second access road to the mine site that would cut through protected roadless and riparian areas, as well as critical threatened species habitat. Perpetua would reconstruct and widen 23 miles of existing National Forest road to roughly four times the width of standard roads in the area, and carve out 15 miles of entirely new road through remote wildlife habitat, mostly in inventoried roadless areas.
"In light of Perpetua's push to begin full construction, court intervention is necessary to protect critical habitat in the South Fork Salmon watershed from damages that simply cannot be undone," said IRU Conservation Director Nick Kunath. "This watershed and all that it provides deserves much more than allowing Perpetua to plow forward with damaging activities before the case before the court has had a chance to be resolved."
The preliminary injunction asks the court to preserve the current status quo until a final ruling is issued. Once a road is bulldozed through roadless wilderness, there is no putting it back.
EXIM Bank Approves $2.9 Billion in Taxpayer Financing, Despite Our Objections
On May 21, the U.S. Export-Import Bank voted to provide approximately $2.9 billion in financing for the Stibnite Gold Project, despite formal objections filed by IRU and four partner organizations urging EXIM not to fund the project.
On May 19, just two days before the vote, our coalition called on EXIM to delay its decision, given the serious unresolved legal challenges surrounding the project. EXIM did not heed that warning.
Our coalition's objections center on the serious threat the mine poses to Chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout, all protected under the Endangered Species Act, in one of the most ecologically significant river systems in the Pacific Northwest. Environmental concerns aside, we urged the bank to at the very least delay the vote until the pending litigation that underpins the project's viability is fully resolved.
The financing decision also exposes taxpayers to enormous financial risk. Independent analysis has consistently shown that large-scale mining projects carry a history of cost overruns and delays. And despite Perpetua's longstanding pitch that Stibnite would provide a domestic source of the critical mineral antimony, under an EXIM loan, the company would now be required to export significant portions of antimony overseas, undermining the project's core justification.
IRU and our partners are now exploring all available legal avenues to challenge EXIM's decision, and are not ruling out litigation.
What’s ahead
While these developments are concerning, we will not stop fighting to protect the South Fork Salmon watershed from this disastrous project and will continue to ensure that all of our supporters are aware of any future developments.
