EMIGRANT, MONT. — Acting on a recommendation last month from the U.S. Forest Service, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Monday announced the withdrawal from mining for 20 years of more than 30,000 acres of federal lands in southwest Montana. Saying that “there are places to mine and places not to mine,” Zinke said Montana’s Paradise Valley, just north of Yellowstone National Park, was the kind of place where new large-scale mining wasn’t appropriate. The move extends a two-year moratorium on new mining claims in portions of the Custer Gallatin National Forest put in place by the Obama administration in 2016. Existing claims would not be affected. Continue Reading →