Travis Naugle’s preferences lean toward underground.
“I’m an underground mining engineer, so I’m always geared for underground mining as a preference,” he said. “I would prefer not to have my name associated with advancing a new open pit in the state.”
Naugle, a graduate of Montana Tech, is chairman and CEO of Silver Bow Mining.
Silver Bow Mining began surface drilling in May to target high-grade underground veins and has begun rehabilitating the existing Chief Joseph underground decline to enable underground exploration drilling. A decline is a sloping underground opening for machine access from level to level or from the surface; it is also called a ramp.
“We’ve had one drill operating on surface, and now we’re in the process of mobilizing two additional drills,” Naugle said.
Once the Chief Joseph decline is considered safe, “our intent is to re-access the vein system down at the 200-foot-below surface and then 400-foot-below surface,” Naugle said.
Silver Bow Mining currently has 11 employees in Butte.
The focus is the so-called Rainbow Block, Silver Bow’s 878-acre flagship property in north Butte and Walkerville.
Silver Bow’s claims sit atop silver, zinc, gold and lead veins that the Anaconda Company developed over decades before ceasing zinc mining in 1959.
Even though the Richest Hill on Earth gained fame for its copper ore, that’s not the core focus for Silver Bow Mining.
“We’re not here producing copper at these elevations,” Naugle said. “We’re focused on zinc, silver, gold and lead.”
All four are considered critical minerals, as is copper. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, “critical minerals are those that are essential to the economic or national security of the United States; have a supply chain that is vulnerable to disruption; and serve an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for the economic or national security of the U.S.”
Naugle joined a February roundtable at Montana Tech whose participants included Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who beat the drum for the domestic mining and processing of critical minerals.
According to the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, “Unflooded historic workings around Butte are currently being reevaluated for zinc and other metals. Zinc commonly occurs with copper, lead, gold, and silver throughout Montana.”
Naugle said other critical minerals can be associated with zinc, “including things like gallium, germanium, antimony, bismuth and indium.”
Meanwhile, he said Silver Bow Mining is acutely aware that many residents of Butte-Silver Bow County might feel ambivalent about mining. He said the scars of historic mining and smelting are obvious, as federal Superfund work continues.
“I don’t want to ask anyone to trust us,” Naugle said. “I want to act with credibility. What does credibility mean? It’s doing what we say we’re gonna do.”
In a June 3 letter to Silver Bow Mining shareholders, Naugle referenced Butte's history.
"In Butte, mining is woven into the community's identity," he observed. "That history is evident in the headframes that define the skyline, in the stories shared across generations and in the pride that people take in their community."
Much of the underground exploration work ahead will proceed from the vicinity of the Badger Mine.
Both the surface drilling locations and the historic Badger Mine site — location of the Chief Joseph portal — are private property that Silver Bow Mining owns.
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has granted permits for the exploration work, and Silver Bow Mining has posted reclamation surety totaling approximately $2.41 million for site reclamation upon completion of exploration.
Silver Bow Mining’s initial public offering of stock raised nearly $60 million in gross proceeds. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange American as SBMT.
Naugle is involved also with Falcon Copper, serving as its executive chairman, director and founder.
Falcon Copper’s proposed Blue Copper exploration project would be on public lands near Avon.
Specifically, the copper-dominant mineral exploration project would be in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, and Powell and Lewis and Clark counties, and include lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Falcon Copper would construct up to 127 drill pads over 8 individual target areas. All drill pads would be located on public lands, with 112 pads on National Forest lands and 15 on BLM lands. The Forest Service released a draft environmental assessment for the project earlier this month.
Environmental groups contend the federal review of the project is moving too quickly and without adequate public participation, partly because of the national push for critical minerals.