Klondex/Hecla Nevada drilled at three places behind the historic Aurora Cemetery in 2023;  a start on the 16 locations they were approved to do. However, the Forest Service just released a scoping notice to kick off an environmental assessment for another, bigger project--the Polaris Exploration Project in the Aurora Mining District. This project involves much more drilling in the Sawtooth Ridge area than before plus drilling on the slopes of Mt. Hicks and East Brawley Peak for a total of 102 drill sites. Mt. Hicks is an inventoried roadless area, but temporary roads would be put in to get to the drill sites and then reclaimed. There will be nine miles of temporary roads total on the slopes of East Brawley Peak and Mt. Hicks. Many will be in pinyon woodland areas. Water use would be 4,000 or 10,000 gallons per day depending up the type of drilling required. This is a big exploration project and could lead to the expansion of the open-pit, cyanide heap leach gold mine at Aurora. 

To see the harm done by just three drill sites, step through our slideshow, What Exploratory Drilling Looks Like at Sawtooth Ridge.