The sulfide of the metalloid Antimony (Sb₂S₃) is called stibnite. It is also the primary ore. The word comes from Latin—stibium—and that’s the source of the elemental symbol. Antimony is mined with other sulfides like cinnabar (mercury sulfide, HgS) and is found with gold, silver, lead, copper, arsenic, tungsten and many other minerals.

There was a domestic source of antimony: the Stibnite Mining Area near the town of Yellow Pine, Idaho. It’s part of the East Fork South Fork Salmon River (EFSFSR) watershed. It’s now a Superfund site. The USGS had this map:

It’s hard to get a sense of where this place is so here’s another map:

The town of Yellow Pine and the Stibnite Mining Area are near the “Mid” of the map label “Mid Fk Salmon R.” or about 80 miles west of Salmon. It is rugged, mountainous country and hard to get to but it is a popular area for rafting, fishing, and other recreation. Not to mention its forests and wilderness areas help protect a vast watershed.

Here’s a quote from the an EPA report on the site:

Past mining activities have deposited metals, spent and neutralized ore, waste rock, and mine tailings over half of the site. Mining-related source areas of potential contaminants include the Bradley tailings (the main deposition area), the smelter process area and its waste piles, process ponds, five heap-leach pads, unmaintained mine tunnel adits, and an open-pit mine. Contaminants associated with mining operations include heavy metals (e.g., arsenic and antimony) and cyanide in area soil, groundwater, surface water, seeps/springs, and sediments.

Mining is a messy business. Antimony is used in alloys, particularly in lead-acid batteries which are manufactured by the millions. It is also used in semiconductors. So, we need the stuff. And we need to figure out how to get the minerals we use without making a toxic waste dump that needs Superfund status!

Perpetua Resources (formerly Midas Gold, stock symbol PPTA) is an Idaho company and it has a plan to resume gold mining in the Yellow Pine/Stibnite Region. They also want to start producing antimony again.

The forks of the Salmon River eventually merge and then dump into the Snake River which is ultimately swallowed by the Columbia River. That runs all the way to the Pacific Ocean. I started my search for antimony and wound up with watersheds. All of us depend on the health of our watershed. If we poison our water upstream then that poison will show up downstream.

What watershed do you live in? Where does your water come from? Where does it go?

Do you know?