Montana Tunnels in confidential talks

Montana Tunnels Mining and its debtors, including Jefferson County and the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, are continuing behind-closed-doors discussions aimed at resolving the mining company’s long-running bankruptcy case.

In a Feb. 12 letter to the Montana Bankruptcy Court, Judge Whitman L. Holt reported that an initial meeting had occurred that week between the parties in the bankruptcy case, “who agreed to keep the settlement process open for another month so certain issues can be explored.”

Holt, the bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Washington, was appointed In December by the Montana Court to oversee a so-called judicial settlement conference aimed at bringing Tunnels’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, which began in October, 2023, to resolution. The conference was arranged in response to Jefferson County’s petition that the court reverse its earlier dismissal of the case.