HELENA -- A mining industry push to repeal Montana's 1998 ban on cyanide in mining appears to be going nowhere -- at least for now.

The movement was announced in March, after Sen. Debbie Shea, D-Butte, killed a bill in the 2003 Legislature she sponsored that would have put a repeal of the cyanide ban on the 2004 ballot as a referendum. Shea said at the time she was putting her weight behind an industry-led drive to do the same thing.

But nine months later, few of the people in the mining industry or involved in the legislative fight are aware of any efforts to bring a repeal to the voters, even as gold prices climb. Gold prices closed Thursday at $404.60 per ounce.

Cyanide leach mining was banned in 1998 when Montana voters passed Initiative 137 by a margin of 52 to 48 percent. Critics say the ban froze any new mining in the state and hobbled the economy, while supporters say it protected Montana taxpayers from costly environmental clean ups after mining companies abandon polluted mine sites, which has happened several times in recent history.

So far, said Gayle Shirley, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office, no one has submitted a proposed initiative to repeal the cyanide ban. By state law, the secretary of state's office, along with the Legislative Services Division and attorney general's office must review all proposed initiatives before backers can start gathering the necessary voters' signatures to place an item on the ballot. Signature lists are due by June 18, 2004. Most proposed initiatives start coming in January, Shirley said.

Shea said this month she was not aware of any efforts to bring a repeal of the voters. Aidan Myhre, the lobbyist hired by the consortium of mining and commerce groups to support the bill, said her company, the Gallatin Group, is no longer involved with the effort.

Angela Janacaro, of the Montana Mining Association, said ''nothing really" is happening with the repeal, although ''it certainly is an interest of the mining industry."

Jon Metropoulos, the Helena lawyer who represents and lobbied for mining company Canyon Resources, Corp., said he wasn't sure what was happening with the effort.

Canyon Resources had earlier pledged to be a part of the repeal.

The company's president, Dick DeVoto, said this month that a repeal of the ban ''is under consideration." Asked if his company would play a role in the effort -- like help draft the proposed law and pay people to gather signatures -- DeVoto said ''we really don't know at this moment."

The company has been fighting the ban since 1998 in various lawsuits. In October, their case went before the Montana Supreme Court, where a company lawyer said they wanted the ban suspended for a large gold mining project the company proposed near Lincoln.

The state's top court has not yet ruled on the case.

Jim Jensen, executive director of the Helena-based environmental group Montana Environmental Information Center and author of I-137, said he thinks the ban has paid off.

''The truth about how dangerous cyanide heap leach gold mining is has become more and more apparent since I-137 passed," he said.

Jensen also said Canyon Resources should clean up the company's defunct C.R. Kendall gold mine near Lewistown before asking Montana voters to allow it to mine with cyanide again.

Cleaning up the defunct mine is at the center of years-old debate between Canyon Resources and state environmental regulators. The state is in the process of doing a comprehensive environmental study to determine the best way to reclaim the mine, said Warren McCullough, of the Department of Environmental Quality. Ordinarily, companies are required to pay for such studies, but, in this case, Canyon Resources has refused. The company has also refused to spend any more than the roughly $1.9 million reclamation bond the state has already collected. McCullough said he wasn' t sure how much it would cost to fully clean up the Kendall mine.