Heather McDowell, Sibanye-Stillwater VP of legal and external affairs, describes the Good Neighbor Agreement is "Utopian".
Thirty-five years ago, Big Timber rancher Jerry Iverson rose at a palpably tense public meeting, where he heard the sneers and jeers while expressing incredulity at plans for a palladium mine along the gin-clear East Boulder River.
Iverson knew the area like his backyard, which is how he viewed it. He'd herded sheep upstream in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. He and his wife had packed high onto the East Boulder Plateau on horseback, dismounting and admiring "the mine site before there was a mine."
Like many purists, Iverson thought gouging a hole in the granite in such a spectacular setting - some 30 miles as the crow flew north of Yellowstone National Park, which President Bill Clinton would soon declare "more precious than gold" when another nearby mine was halted - bordered on sacrilege.
"When I heard a mine was proposed for that area, I just wanted to do whatever I could to get involved and try to protect the wild qualities," Iverson recalled in a recent interview.
Fast forward to today, and Iverson still rises to speak about Sibanye-Stillwater's palladium mine at East Boulder and platinum mine at Nye, one valley to the east.
Only now, the gatherings are no longer fraught with mistrust and hostility. And Iverson, as devoted to preserving wilderness as ever, shares an entirely different message.
"I want the mine to be successful," he says, conceding it's an about-face that has "kind of turned the traditional us-versus-them template on its head."
Indeed, the story of Sibanye-Stillwater's mines - or lack of stories on how the company accesses the world's largest known palladium reserves - is a marvel for groups typically at irrevocable odds.
An unlikely tale of collaboration and compromise began in the late 1990s after the usual flurry of rancor and lawsuits. It concluded after three years of negotiations with what's familiarly known as "The GNA": A one-of-a-kind Good Neighbor Agreement approaching its 25th anniversary.
And perhaps most remarkable, the GNA thrives today, without a single shot fired or lawsuit filed.
"Why are we different?" Heather McDowell, a native of the tiny Stillwater River community of Bridger and the mining company's vice president of legal and external affairs, asks rhetorically. "It's really because of the GNA. There were some really big thinkers, and they convinced others to go forward. There definitely was resistance but I think everybody at the table could see the value. Folks back in the late '90s picked their heads up and realized we are mining in the most beautiful, pristine place in the entire world.
"It's a massive privilege to do what we're doing there."
In the beginning
The GNA harkens to the late 1980s, when murmurs of a new mine reached the ears of Paul Hawks, a Melville rancher who often assisted on cattle drives up the East Boulder.
Hawks remembers a few other "old-time ranchers" fretting about a mine's impacts on the cool, clear, trout-rich waters cascading toward the Yellowstone River, through the ranch where Robert Redford whispered to horses and past sanctuary homes built by actor Michael Keaton, journalist Tom Brokaw and author Tom McGuane. In response, the Cottonwood Resource Council was formed in 1988, with Hawks as the first chairman leading fidgety discussions in Big Timber.
Most worrisome was Stillwater Mining's request for an exemption to non-degradation language in state water-quality laws.
"What we were really concerned about was the pristine quality of the water in the East Boulder, the economies of the fishing industry and not wanting to jeopardize the ranching community," recalled Hawks, whom Iverson describes as "a hero" and "moral force".
Eventually Cottonwood and Billings-based Northern Plains Resource Council sued. They litigated for three years, but after the Montana Legislature weakened water laws at the behest of the Montana Mining Association, the suit was dismissed in 1995.
When the new mine was finally permitted in 1998 and expansion at Nye approved a year later, the groups were loathe to spend more time and money in the legal "black hole", Hawks said.
Was there another way?
Northern Plains and Cottonwood, along with the Stillwater Protective Association, which monitored the Nye mine, had heard of good-neighbor agreements involving oil and gas refineries in California and Texas. After researching the few existing pacts, they cobbled one together and asked to meet with Stillwater CEO Bill Nettles. Also eager to avoid a prolonged court battle, Nettles agreed.
"The company had a lot of motivation to negotiate because it wanted to get East Boulder going," said McDowell, who was drawn to her job by the GNA. "That's a barrier in a lot of other situations. The gift given was that Northern Plains was willing to let the mine go forward with certain requirements, and that is unique."
The negotiating teams agreed to a handful of rules: Everybody at the table could make decisions, what was said behind closed doors stayed there, and lawyers were banned.
Of the many issues, Iverson recalled in what he describes as "hard-fought negotiations", the most challenging were water quality and tailings impoundments in a seismically active area.
After months of exhaustive haggling, including the groups walking out of a meeting when a mine attorney appeared, the result was the first -- and still only -- known legally binding agreement between citizens groups and a hard-rock mining company. The GNA, all 100 pages of it, was signed May 8, 2000 amid deep skepticism. Production at the mine began a year later.
"It was a big question mark," Iverson remembers. "Can we make this work? Do we even understand the terms? It was precedent-setting because there weren't a lot of good-neighbor agreements around the country we could look to for advice or a template.
"We were in untested waters and we didn't know how it was going to go but we signed it."
The parties shook hands, took a deep breath and celebrated breaking new ground.
"If we're going to have a mine," Hawks famously said at the time, "it's going to be the best damn mine in the world."
Only then did they all realize: The work was just beginning.
"It was great," Hawks continued of the agreement, adding with a chuckle: "And that turns out to be the easier part, if you can call it that."
Emerging from the GNA were two oversight committees, with equal participation from the miners and citizens groups. They would meet regularly, and still do, monthly. Stillwater agreed to fund the partnership, at $135,000 annually; today it's $525,000.
Any impasses would go to binding arbitration, with Stillwater expenditures capped at $1 million. In part to protect the company's stock price, confidentiality agreements ensured substantive issues were resolved privately.
A key step was two hires by GNA, both Montana Tech alums: Conservation-oriented mining engineer Jim Kuipers and technical advisor Sarah Zuzulock, an environmental engineer and water specialist. Both provided trusted, impartial knowledge; they remain engaged today.
Baselines were established for water quality and biological integrity. The company set aside some 4,000 acres in conservation easements. Mine clean-up and aesthetics are closely monitored. To prevent man camps and ease congestion, mine-sponsored housing is limited to nearby communities.
Transparency was paramount.
Not that there haven't been tugs-of-war over a quarter-century.
Water quality is always literally under a microscope. Sibanye-Stillwater agreed to standards more stringent than state and federal baselines on the East Boulder and Stillwater rivers, and nitrogen levels occasionally stray above them, more so in ground water than the river.
"They're between a rock and a hard place because the water's so clean you can't put much into it to meet standards up there," Hawks says.
Yet when water-quality triggers do occur, issues are resolved.
The GNA also fosters collaborative efforts to improve the mine's design, public safety, impacts on aesthetics and how, for example, to navigate upcoming development of waste-rock facilities and a 474-acre increase in the mine's footprint.
When issues such as lights beaming 24/7 or noise from evaporators impacts subdivisions, Sibanye-Stillwater strives to mitigate them.
"They do seem to be responsive when there are issues," said Kaite Howes, chair of the Northern Plains' Good Neighbor Agreement Task Force. "I give them credit for that."
What's next?
After 25 years, those involved are unabashedly proud. They also have angst about what's next.
The layoff of nearly 700 employees has staggered area communities.
The question is thus begged: Will Sibanye-Stillwater seek to roll back environmental agreements to cut costs?
"It's going to be a challenge going forward," Iverson said. "We've seen this in the past. When times get tough, when the economy ratchets down, a company has a harder time spending money for environmental protection. So it's incumbent on us to keep the pressure on and don't let the operation slip back. We take that really seriously."
Added Hawks: "Who knows what'll go on this time? Stay tuned."
Yet stringent regulations, the company acknowledges, aren't the issue -- costs notwithstanding.
"We believe in robust regulation," McDowell said. "We want to have stringent water and air-quality regulations and stringent tailings regulations. It's not a case of if we didn't have regulations everything would be fine. It's not like that at all.
"The problem is we're selling into the very same markets as bad actors."
Long-term, questions loom about reclamation after the palladium runs out.
Regardless of the challenges, those involved know what's in their corner: History, a collective will for success and, above all, The GNA.
"It's worked," Hawks said. "The mine is a hell of a lot better than what it might have been without this agreement. I think both sides would agree with that."
They would.
"As a corporate lawyer, I think it's Utopian," McDowell said. "People on my team who've worked on it for 25 years roll their eyes because it's been a ton of hard work. But it's caused us to reflect and it's greatly changed how we've done things. I think the magic is we've been lucky enough to avoid litigation because we've created mine sites that are so much better."
Iverson sees the GNA as a blueprint for balancing day-to-day needs with protecting shrinking wild places. That's why, 35 years after passionately speaking in opposition, he recently rose in another public meeting in favor of his backyard mine.
"When there's a challenge we talk it out," Iverson summarized. "We're both committed to the success of the GNA.
"I think it's worked beautifully."
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