Dangerous gold-mine venture -- banned in Montana -- gives Idaho work to Butte firm

Foreign speculators at Canada's Otis Gold Corp. -- whose risky cyanide-based extraction process is banned in Montana -- have employed a Montana firm in their scheme to extract royalty-free gold from public lands in Idaho.

Drilling rig in Kilgore Project area.

In its push to launch its dangerous 12,000-acre cyanide-based open-pit operation at the headwaters of Idaho's lifeblood -- the Snake River Plain aquifer -- Otis is employing Alford Drilling, LLC, of Butte, Montana, to spearhead its Idaho exploratory drilling.

Alford's rigs began drilling Oct. 9 in a southerly branch of the wildlife-rich Centennial Mountains, at the northeastern headwaters of the aquifer that waters 3 million acres of Idaho farmland.