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Alaska Mining

[Alaska/British Columbia Mining Dispute] Delegation asks Kerry for transboundary review – by Elwood Brehmer (Alaska Journal of Commerce – May 12, 2016)

http://www.alaskajournal.com/

Alaska’s congressional delegation responded Thursday to continued concerns from Southeast Alaskans about Canadian mine plans by asking Secretary of State John Kerry to look into whether environmental practices across the border are worthy of attention under a bilateral treaty.

Rep. Don Young and Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan sent a letter to Kerry May 12 requesting the State Department to question Canadian officials about the impact active and proposed hard rock mines in British Columbia and the Yukon could have on salmon in several large “transboundary” rivers.

“Like most Alaskans, we strongly support responsible mining, including mines in Southeast Alaska, but Alaskans need to have every confidence that mining activity in Canada is carried out just as safely as it is in our state,” the delegation wrote. “Yet, today, that confidence does not exist.

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Alaska raises concerns with B.C.’s mining oversight after audit – by Justine Hunter (Globe and Mail – May 5, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VICTORIA — Six months after signing a pact to co-operate on mine development across the B.C.-Alaska border, the Alaskan government is questioning British Columbia’s ability to protect the environment due to weak enforcement of its mining industry.

Alaska Lieutenant-Governor Byron Mallott says his government will demand assurances that British Columbia is taking action in the wake of a new report from the province’s Auditor-General that calls for the creation of an independent agency to take over regulation of the mining industry because of lax enforcement and compliance.

“The Office of the Auditor-General’s report is troubling and a wake-up call to the B.C. government that important changes must occur,” Mr. Mallott, who has led the state government’s negotiations with British Columbia on the issue of mining, said in a statement.

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My Turn: Doing mining differently up north – by Lewis Rifkind (The Juneau Empire – April 29, 2016)

http://juneauempire.com/

Lewis Rifkind is a mining analyst for Yukon Conservation Society.

British Columbia Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett’s response to Alaskans’ growing concerns about the downstream effects of mining in BC has usually been to defend the BC mine permitting process, invite more Alaskan participation in the process and then accuse Alaskans of having an inadequate understanding of the BC mine review and regulatory regime.

Alaskans have rightly bristled at these statements, noting that the BC process has resulted in more than 50 years of acid mine drainage from the Tulsequah Chief and the Mount Polley tailings dam disaster. Alaskans formally asked for a federal Panel Review of the KSM mine proposal, but these requests were ignored. So, it makes sense that Alaskans do not trust the BC process.

And, despite Bennett’s defense of the BC process, there are clear examples of ways to do it better.

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Emily Riedel of ‘Bering Sea Gold’ is one of the best Alaska reality stars working. Here’s why. – by Emily Fehrenbacher (Alaska Dispatch News – April 19, 2016)

 

http://www.adn.com/

If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching thousands of hours of lowbrow TV, it’s what makes something continuously watchable. Though by way of context, I’m a 30-year-old who’s pretty basic. I still watch “The Real World” even though every person on it is the worst. I almost cried when “The People vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story” ended, because it made my Tuesdays. And I think 30-minute sitcoms (“You’re the Worst,” “Master of None,” “Veep,” “Catastrophe,” “Togetherness,” etc.) are the best thing happening in the television world. Sorry, “Game of Thrones.”

There is a Discovery Channel program that I believe deserves more mainstream love than it’s getting: “Bering Sea Gold.” For whatever reason, I missed the boat (pun!) on “Deadliest Catch,” which, based on its staying power, is a legitimately good show. Even in its early seasons, when I caught several episodes, it never was able to reel me in (pun again!).

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Miner gets year in prison for criminal violation of Clean Water Act – by Alex DeMarban (Alaska Dispatch News – March 31, 2016)

https://www.adn.com/

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced the operator of a platinum mine that discharged pollutants into a salmon-spawning river in Southwest Alaska to a year in prison and, following that, a year of supervised release.

The sentencing is part of the first federal case in Alaska charging a mining company and its key operators with criminal violations of the Clean Water Act.

James Slade, a Canadian resident who in 2010 and 2011 was chief operating officer of XS Platinum Inc., an Australian-led company, can spend the second year of his punishment — the supervised release — in Canada, said U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason.

Gleason’s decision came after a sentencing hearing lasting almost four hours, and capped months of dispute between federal prosecutors and defendants in a major pollution case that has ensnared two other participants in the operation.

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A Canadian mine threatens the ‘heart and soul’ of an Alaskan community – by Charles Mandel (National Observer – March 30, 2016)

http://www.nationalobserver.com/

Awestruck by the glacier-streaked mountains jutting from the ground and the powerful flowing Chilkat River slicing through the deep valley, Joe Ordonez moved to Haines, Alaska in 1987.

Now, 29 years later, Ordonez is fighting to preserve that same natural grandeur – which includes a world-renowned bald eagle preserve – from a proposed copper, zinc, silver and gold mine upstream.

“It’s a terrible location for a mine,” says Ordonez, who previously worked as a naturalist on cruise ships, work which took him from the Amazon to Antarctica, and who today operates a tour guide company in the region. “I’ve worked in all seven continents. I’ve seen the most amazing places in the world and here’s one of them right where I live in Haines, Alaska. It’s just not worth the risk. “

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Mining executives see Alaska in better light – by Shane Lasley (Petroleum News – March 6, 2016)

http://www.petroleumnews.com/

Perceptions of Far North state’s mining policies, mineral potential improve; mixed bag for British Columbia, Canadian territories

Alaska and the Yukon Territory continue to be perceived as among the best places in the world to seek and develop a mine, according to 449 mining executives who responded to the Fraser Institute’s Survey of Mining Companies 2015. This group of miners, explorers and consultants ranked these northern neighbors as two of the richest mineral jurisdictions on Earth, but found certain mining policies in each a cause for concern.

As a result, the mining leaders ranked Alaska sixth and Yukon 12th on the survey’s Investment Attractiveness Index, a measure that weighs miners’ perceptions of both the mineral endowment and mining policies of 109 jurisdictions around the globe.

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Alaskans awaken to issues of mining, salmon and rivers we share with Canada – by Melanie Brown (Alaska Dispatch News – February 21, 2016)

http://www.adn.com/

Melanie Brown works with Salmon Beyond Borders to advocate for healthy watersheds in Southeast Alaska.

Although my parents are from Western Alaska, I consider myself lucky to have been born in Sitka. Work opportunities took our family northward, but my life led me back to Southeast Alaska, where I have chosen to raise my children.

It is a rich life with all the rivers, land and sea have to offer. We have friends who are good about sharing what they have and we are happy to reciprocate. We migrate along with the salmon to Bristol Bay every summer to be with our blood relatives and our home-river, but returning to Juneau for winter “fits our skin.” Not long after moving back here however, we learned of a looming threat to Southeast waters.

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Northern Dynasty’s Pebble on ‘cusp of resolution’ – by Lesley Stokes (Northern Miner – February 17, 2016)

http://www.northernminer.com/

VANCOUVER — There’s more battling ahead for Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX: NDM; NYSE-MKT: NAK) as it prepares to dispute its case to the U.S. Federal court against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to veto development of its world-class Pebble deposit, 321 km southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.

Ron Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty, said during a session at Vancouver’s Resource Investment Conference in January that the company is “on the cusp of a resolution,” and expects that a final decision will be reached this year.

The behemoth porphyry copper-gold deposit — which has measured and indicated resources of 57 billion lb. copper and 70 million oz. gold in 6.4 billion tonnes — is located at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest wild salmon fishery.

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EPA cleared of bias in Alaska mine controversy despite lost emails – by M.D. Kittle (Watchdog.org – January 14, 2016)

http://watchdog.org/

Despite acknowledging it could not obtain more than two years of emails from a key employee, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General on Wednesday effectively cleared the EPA of allegations of bias in its quest to preemptively kill a proposed mine in southwest Alaska.

The troubling details of the missing emails raise charges of an EPA whitewashing, a scenario and an allegation all-too-familiar in the Obama administration.

Tom Collier, CEO of Pebble Limited Partnership, the investment group behind the proposed copper and gold mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay, said the EPA continues to “minimize the seriousness of its own misconduct with respect to the Pebble Project, while sweeping under the rug the complicity of its most senior officials.”

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Alaska Treasure Mine and the ghost town of Gastineau City – by Brian Weed (Juneau Empire -December 23, 2015)

http://juneauempire.com/

The history of the Alaska Treasure Mine begins in 1884, when William Thompson found mineralization on the south end of Douglas Island, in the Nevada Creek area. Unable to find any backers, Thompson didn’t develop it and the area was abandoned.

In 1903, Percy Morgan and Col. Frank Stone purchased the area and created the Alaska Treasure Gold Mining Company. There were 25 employees working the property in the summer of 1904. The next year a wagon road was built from the beach to the mine site; it had an elevation gain of about 800 feet.

Under the watchful eye of Mike Hudson, buildings were built, tunnels drilled and, by the end of the year, the Corbus Mill, Hudson adit, Hogback shaft and 700 feet of trenches were completed. In 1906, 1.5 tons of hand-picked ore was sent to a smelter and it came back with an $11,000 return.

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20 years and counting: Donlin Gold reaches major milestone; long path to production remains – by Shane Lasley (Mining News – December 13, 2015)

http://www.petroleumnews.com/miningnewsnorth/index.shtml

After 20 years of exploration and permitting, the Donlin Gold project is on the downhill side of gaining the permits needed to develop a mine at the 39-million-ounce gold deposit in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Southwest Alaska.

On Nov. 25, the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers released a draft Environmental Impact Statement for what will likely be among the largest gold-producing mines on the planet.

The Donlin Gold Mine being considered in the draft EIS includes a 53,500-metric-ton-per-day mill that is expected to produce an average of 1.1 million ounces of gold annually at a cash-cost of US$585 per ounce for 27 years. During its first five years of operation, the mine is designed to extract 1.5 million oz. of gold annually at a cash-cost of US$409 per ounce.

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[British Columnbia] Clark needs to step up on environment – by Stephen Hume (Vancouver Sun – November 25, 2015)

http://www.vancouversun.com/

Wednesday’s agreement between Premier Christy Clark and Alaska Gov. Bill Walker promising protection for shared environments from new mining developments on trans-boundary salmon rivers won’t quell the grassroots opposition swelling in the Northern U.S. state.

In fact, it might even make things more difficult for B.C.’s ambitious northwest development plans. Alaskan First Nations, fishing and environmental groups are already signalling a desire to trigger U.S. federal intervention through the International Joint Commission under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty.

What happened to the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines — once promoted as a sure thing to carry Alberta’s oilsands crude to tidewater — might serve as a cautionary examples.

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The melting Arctic is like ‘discovering a new Africa’ – by Leslie Shaffer (CNBC – November 12, 2015)

http://www.cnbc.com/

Governments and the private sector are positioning to develop the Arctic, where the wealth of resources is akin to a “new Africa,” according to Iceland’s president.

The melting of the Arctic is an ongoing phenomenon: In October, about 7.7 million square kilometers (about 3 million square miles) of Arctic sea ice remained, around 1.2 million square kilometers less than the average from 1981-2010, according to calculations by Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis that was published by researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

One effect of the melting ice has been newly opened sea passages and fresh access to resources.

“Until 20 or so years ago, (the Arctic) was completely unknown and unmarked territory,” Iceland’s President Olafur Grimsson told an Arctic Circle Forum in Singapore on Thursday. “It is as if Africa suddenly appeared on our radar screen.”

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OPINION PAGE: When Gold Isn’t Worth the Price – by Michael J. Kowalski (New York Times – November 6, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/

Michael J. Kowalski, the chief executive of Tiffany & Company from 1999 to 2015, is the chairman of its board.

THERE are few places in the world more beautiful than the landscape of salmon-rich rivers that flow into Bristol Bay, Alaska. I arrived there seven years ago not as a sportsman or ecotourist, as most visitors do, but as a chief executive fearful that the company I led would be seen as complicit in the destruction of this remarkable place.

My colleagues and I traveled to Bristol Bay in 2008 to encounter firsthand the land and people put in harm’s way by the proposed Pebble Mine. This vast open-pit gold and copper mine and its toxic waste would obliterate miles of pristine streams and thousands of wilderness acres that sustainthe world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery, which supports thousands of jobs. All in pursuit of the gold from which Tiffany & Company made jewelry.

The conclusion we reached was inescapable: No amount of corporate profit or share price value could justify our participation, however indirectly, in the degradation of such indescribable beauty. Beyond pledging not to use gold produced by the Pebble Mine, we became vocal opponents of mine development there.

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