Photo: A nice-looking brown trout. Courtesy Drew Winterer.

Of the Missouri's three forks, the Jefferson attracts the least fishing attention. While its sister rivers, the Gallatin and Madison, garner international glory as destination streams, the Jefferson is left to its slow-moving ways. But the river named for the president who launched the Expedition and chosen by the Corp of Engineers as the source of the Missouri has its own charms. While cattle have replaced elk, and one mountaintop has been completely displaced by a gold mine (the Golden Sunlight Mine, which recently mined its 1 millionth ounce of gold after 20 years of operation), the valley is still the "open and lovely plain" Lewis described.

Conservation Update The Golden Sunlight open pit cyanide leach gold mine is situated one mile from the Jefferson River near Whitehall. Started in 1983, the mine has polluted the groundwater aquifer with cyanide from a leaky tailings pond, contaminating numerous residential water wells and requiring the provision of alternative drinking water sources to affected residences. Golden Sunlight then bought the land overlying the contaminated groundwater aquifer and is now required to operate a pumping system to remove and treat the toxic water in order to keep the plume of contamination from entering the Jefferson River. On August 31, 2000, there was a 390,000-gallon toxic spill discharge from the cyanide-laced tailings pond, and on October 26, 2000, an additional spill of 2,020 gallons occurred. The Montana State Department of Environmental Quality predicts the mine will continue to generate significant quantities of acid mine drainage, requiring treatment in perpetuity to prevent acids and heavy metals from forming a toxic pit lake and entering the groundwater and the Jefferson River. Pit backfilling would be the best reclamation action to minimize acid mine drainage. The state must negotiate adequate bond monies to complete the desired reclamation. Who to contact: The Bozeman, Montana Sierra Club Office P.O. Box 1290 Bozeman, MT 59771 406-582-8365 david.ellenberger@sierraclub.org Find out more: Montana River Action, Other resources: Four Rivers Fishing Co. Greater Yellowstone Flyfisher