HELENA - Lawyers will give oral arguments before the Montana Supreme Court today over a 1998 voter-passed ban on cyanide leach mining in Montana.

Attorneys for Canyon Resources Corp., the Colorado company that wanted to develop a large cyanide heap leach gold mine near Lincoln, are expected to ask the justices to either suspend the ban for the Lincoln project or reimburse the company up to $500 million for what they say the mine would be worth if the ban hadn't passed.

Lawyers for the state are expected to stress the rationale of Helena District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock, who threw the case out of his court almost a year ago saying the mining company lost nothing when the ban passed because it didn 't have a permit to mine.

At issue is Initiative 137, which passed by a 52 to 48 percent margin in November 1998. The initiative banned the use of cyanide leaching at future mines in Montana. When the initiative passed, Canyon Resources was in the process of trying to get a permit to construct a large cyanide leach gold and silver mine called the Seven-Up Pete Joint Venture near Lincoln. At the time, however, the project did not have a permit to mine and wasn't in operation.

"When I-137 passed, it unfairly took something from our client," said Alan Joscelyn, the Helena attorney representing Canyon Resources. " And what it took was the right to continue the process of seeking the permits. They'd invested millions and millions (of dollars) in pursuit of that."

Jocelyn said he's not asking for the court to quash the law, just to roll it back for the Seven Up Pete mine and restore the project to the status it had when the ban passed: able to seek a permit to open a cyanide leach mine.

If the Supreme Court doesn't decide to roll back the law, Jocelyn said the mining company is asking the state to reimburse the mine to the tune of about $500 million - an estimate of the mine's value before the initiative passed.

Brian Morris, state solicitor who is arguing for the state, said he thinks the case boils down to the state-owned mineral leases the company held and whether simply owning a state lease entitles one to mine.

He thinks it doesn't.

"Having a lease and having a permit are two different things," Morris said.

He also said the company's mining permit application had fallen behind by the time voters passed the ban because Canyon Resources hadn't paid the company working on the complex environmental study of the project.

Morris also said that even if the ban hadn't passed, it's entirely possible that the Department of Environmental Quality could have denied the company's permit application.

"The state doesn't owe them anything based on the passage of I-137," he said. "They had a mineral lease and all that was was an opportunity to explore for minerals."

Jim Jensen, executive director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, which sponsored I-137 and has intervened on behalf of the state in the ensuing suit, also defended the initiative.

"The people of Montana have the right to protect themselves from a destructive, poisonous, costly failed mining technology and that's all I-137 does," he said.

The top court is not expected to immediately rule on the case.

If you go:

Montana Supreme Court oral arguments are open to the public. This case will be heard at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28 in the Montana Supreme Court chambers at the Justice Building and State Library, 215 N. Sanders Ave. in Helena. The hearing is expected to last just over an hour.