On behalf of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Community in northeastern Montana, WELC attorneys sued the Bureau of Land Management and several other federal agencies for permitting the development and expansion of two cyanide gold mines in the Little Rocky Mountains, which are located directly adjacent to and upstream from the Fort Belknap Reservation.  The mines are the largest of their kind in the world, and have caused environmental devastation to Tribal cultural and water resources.  Mining operations have diverted flows from the Little Rocky Mountains away from the Reservation, generated waste, and polluted watersheds in the mountains, including those running onto the Reservation.  The mines have also leached, and continue to leach, acid rock drainage – an acidic brew of heavy metals – into surface and groundwaters hydrologically connected to the Reservation.  The Tribes’ cultural and spiritual use of the mountains have also been severely eroded – for example, Spirit Mountain, once the core of Tribal religious practices in the mountains, is now an open mining pit.   We went all the way to the Supreme Court with this difficult case and are now strategizing for the future with the Tribes.