The Fate Of One Of Montana's Most Treasured Rivers Depends On This Election

The Bitterroot River is among the most treasured waterways in this nation; cold, clean, and wild enough that it’s one of the last places in our nation that still teems with native Westslope Cutthroat trout. Sadly, this beautiful, iconic river is also facing a dire existential threat from a gigantic industrial mine proposed on public land in the southwest corner of Montana’s first congressional district.

My Son Lander and Me - With a native Cutthroat on a July afternoon

The mountainous site in Montana is the worst possible location for two reasons, one physical and the other political. First, the physical; the mine is planned literally at the headwaters of the entire valley, meaning all pollutants will flow throughout the 75-mile watershed and then into the Clark Fork River below Missoula.

And then there’s the political. The guy holding the seat in Congress for this district is Ryan Zinke, and he’s a man with an unmatched record of corruption, a history of lobbying for huge mining corporations, and a record of enthusiastic support for disastrous mining projects that imperil America’s most sacred wild places.

4513-acre site map for the proposed Sheep Creek rare earth minerals mine - public land in Southwest Montana - located at the headwaters of the Bitterroot River

I’m running against Zinke in this district right now, and there are a lot of reasons to think I’m going to beat him. I’ve written much about his corruption and the metrics of this race, and you can read some of it here.

If you care about Montana, rivers, trout, or clean water, it’s very important that I win, and so I’m taking a rare day off the trail to write this dispatch to alert you about what exactly is at stake.

It’s tough to overstate how important rivers are to our state and how they define who we are. Montanans orient themselves to rivers. When we talk about The Flathead, The Blackfoot, The Swan, or The Bitterroot, we are referring to entire ecosystems, towns, businesses, people, and valleys, all of which are anchored to a river.

The Bitterroot is the ancestral home of the Salish (Flathead) people. Lewis and Clark first encountered the Salish on September 4, 1805, not too far from this proposed mine site. They were welcomed by the Salish to the famous Traveler’s Rest site near Lolo, on September 9th of that same year. Many Salish people still live throughout the valley and north a hundred miles on the beautiful CSKT reservation.

Floating and Flyfishing the Bitterroot

The Bitterroot is a striking place, with towering mountains standing guard on both sides of a broad valley. The river is a connecting ribbon that supports fly-fishing guides, hay fields, restaurants, and hotels. It’s so classically western that, much to the chagrin of many Montanans, it was chosen for the site of the hit TV show Yellowstone, and the barns seen in that show sit just off the bank of the river.

Yes - those are the Yellowstone Barns - on the banks of the Bitterroot

The people of the Bitterroot include ranchers, retirees, small business owners, and federal workers. Most are proud to be fiercely independent in a way unique to Montana. While there’s no party registration in the state, most of the valley residents also vote Republican, and Donald Trump won the county by 41% in 2024.

That brings me to why the current controversy and fear surrounding this mine is so important; this is yet another case of voters being very disappointed with what Republicans are doing. The Trump administration has made no secret of its demands to fast-track the huge industrial project. And yet even the most conservative residents are angry about it. That’s right, despite the valley’s recent partisan lean, those voters are bucking their party. The evidence for this split is clear in the recent public meetings, where hundreds have shown up to express their overwhelming opposition.

Recent meeting where more than 600 residents attended, most opposed the mine

I’ve met with the Ravalli County commissioners who held those meetings, and no one would accuse them of being leftist opponents of the Trump administration, and yet their official statement to the press included these words:

“There is also a moral and cultural question: Do we want to risk our clean water and heritage for a potentially disruptive industrial operation that may or may not deliver commensurate local benefit? We received NO public testimony in support of including the proposed mine in the FAST41 program. If the mine is to be considered, it MUST be reviewed under the highest environmental standards.”¹

For those not from Montana, I’ll translate; that’s conservative county commissioner speak for “Hey, Trump administration, stop screwing with our rivers, even all the Republicans out here are hopping mad about this!”

Zinke responded to this outcry in his district by trying to distance himself from the fast-track approval process, but his subsequent actions in the U.S. House of Representatives were most telling.

Just weeks after the loud anti-mine demands from his home district, Zinke spent days in Washington DC showing his true colors by whipping votes in support of another mining project; this one a hugely controversial proposal to allow a foreign-owned industrial copper sulfide mine on the edge of America’s most visited wilderness area, the Boundary Waters in Northern MN.

People across the nation pleaded with him not to risk poisoning the place that holds more than 20% of the fresh water in all of America’s wilderness. Hunters and Anglers across the country, including groups and influencers in Montana, also begged Zinke not to support the project.

MeatEater Op-Ed Pleading with Zinke Not to Fail His “Test Of Leadership”

Zinke not only thumbed his nose at them all by voting for it, but he also gave a speech on the House floor and spent hours convincing several of his Republican colleagues to vote for the mine. In what can only be described as a travesty, the bill allowing the huge mine was passed by 6 votes.²

We should stop here to remember that Ryan Zinke is the same guy who was fired as Interior Secretary in the first Trump administration after 18 official ethics investigations were launched against him. And importantly for this new battle in the Bitterroot, after that ouster, he made a fortune lobbying for industrial companies, including a large gold mining corporation.³

Zinke is obviously an expert in defying ethics rules, and he also claims to be a geology expert. Just after his vote to poison the boundary waters, he issued word salad statements rationalizing his actions, saying he had “examined the geology” and that things would be just fine, despite the hundreds of dire warnings from actual scientists to the contrary. Conservation advocate Land Tawney of American Hunters and Anglers summed up the deflated and common-sense response of sportsmen and women everywhere.

“There couldn’t be a worse place for a mine because it’s all water. Why are we doing this in a place that’s so sensitive?”⁴

Now, residents of the Bitterroot, other Montanans in this district, and good people from all across the nation who value our state and our rivers have a chance to give this guy the boot. Just like the disaster on the edge of the Boundary Waters, there could not be a worse place for a mine like this, and we all know he’s going to do all he can to push it through.

That’s the bad news, but there’s some good news in this election, too. I start 4% up on Zinke, and the DCCC just expanded the map to include this race as one of the most important in our nation. ⁵

I take this fight very seriously. My family has spent many of our best days on the rivers of this state, and like many, I feel a sacred responsibility to do whatever I can to conserve this place we love so much.

This is my campaign website. I hope you’ll join me because I’ll need all the help I can get to defeat Zinke. He’ll bring piles of dark money from those big corps, but when we win in November, you can be assured that, unlike him, I’ll lead the fight to save the Bitterroot. I owe it to my boys, to all Montanans, and this country to protect this place.

1. https://dailymontanan.com/2025/12/03/sheehy-daines-and-zinke-call-for-slowdown-on-sheep-creek-mine/

2. https://www.americanrivers.org/media-item/threat-to-public-lands-and-healthy-waters-grows-after-vote-in-house-to-strip-protections-from-boundary-waters/

3. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/former-interior-secretary-zinke-hired-by-gold-mining-firm#:~:text=Zinke%20said%20his%20time%20in,trusted%20journalism%20and%20civil%20dialogue.

4. https://missoulacurrent.com/zinke-mining-wilderness/

5. https://flatheadbeacon.com/2026/02/12/national-democrats-see-pickup-potential-in-montanas-western-house-district/