In a victory for imperiled native trout and grizzly bears, a court has stopped a proposed silver and copper mine that would have tunneled beneath a remote wilderness in northwest Montana

The proposed Rock Creek Mine would have smothered bull trout spawning grounds under tons of sediment and disrupted thousands of acres of habitat for the region’s small grizzly bear population, all while threatening to drain the water out of scenic alpine lakes in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness.

Waste water from the mine would have polluted the Clark Fork River, which flows into Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho. The most recent court ruling marks the third time the mine has been stopped by court challenges, and mine opponents hope it will put an end to the project.