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Alaska Mining

After Alaska’s ‘Burning Man for salmon’, fishermen wary of mine proposal outcome – by Gregory Scruggs (Reuters U.S. November 5, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

SEATTLE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As the commercial fishermen who ply salmon-rich, southwestern Alaska pack away their fishing gear for the winter, many are watching anxiously as a controversial mine proposal moves through the federal permitting process.

On Tuesday, Alaskans will vote on an initiative that, if passed, would set stricter regulations for proposed infrastructure projects that affect salmon habitats.

Advocates for the measure hope it will derail Pebble Mine, the world’s biggest undeveloped gold and copper project, and which is slated for the region of Bristol Bay – the largest fishery for sockeye salmon globally. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is preparing an environmental review of Pebble Mine, with preliminary results due in January.

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‘Gold Rush’ Season 9 First Look: “I’ve Got Everything on the Line” (Exclusive) – by Kimberly Nordyke (Hollywood Reporter – September 24, 2018)

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/

Gold Rush is coming back to Discovery Channel for a ninth season, and The Hollywood Reporter has an exclusive first look. This year, Rick Ness has decided to step it up and become a mine boss with a claim of his own — cashing in his life savings — after working six years under fellow miner Parker Schnabel.

“I’ve been working for Parker [Schnabel] for six years, but I’m done working for somebody else. I want to work for myself,” he says in the clip. “And this is my chance. I’ve got everything on the line. My house. Every penny I have. I’ve got my friends with me, their livelihoods. It doesn’t get any bigger than this.”

In the off-season, Rick spent most of his time nursing his mother until she died. As a result, he’s far behind the others as they race into the mining season.

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Alaska gold-mining memoir a trove of history, adventure tales – by Sam Friedman (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – September 7, 2018)

http://www.newsminer.com/

FAIRBANKS — When Randy Zarnke was first handed an unpublished memoir about a little-known Yukon and Chena River gold miner named Frederick James Currier, the book stood out to Zarnke, both because of the types of adventures and the way the stories about them were told.

That’s saying something, because Zarnke knows Alaska outdoor stories well. He’s the president of the Alaska Trappers Association and has interviewed nearly 200 Alaska outdoorsmen for his previous book “Alaska Tracks: Life Stories from Hunters, Fisherman and Trappers of Alaska.”

“My initial reaction was, ‘Man this is really great,’” Zarnke said. “My second reaction was, ‘We’ve got to share it more widely.’“ In 2007, Zarnke received the manuscript from his friend Dirk Tordoff, a former Rasmuson Library Alaska Film Archives curator. Since reading it, Zarnke has been working on getting the book published through the Alaska Trappers Association and Anchorage business Publication Consultants.

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Opinions: Bristol Bay, not Pebble Mine, is the sound investment pencil – by Jonas Kron (Anchorage Daily News – September 6, 2018)

https://www.adn.com

Jonas Kron is a senior vice president at Trillium Asset Management, an investment firm that focuses on sustainable and responsible investing.

Our investment firm is in the business of recognizing, understanding and pricing risk. It’s a job that often demands difficult judgment calls, but this one is a no-brainer: Pebble Mine is a bad bet. That’s one reason why the governor of Alaska recently called for a hold on mine permitting.

Today’s smart investors don’t just look at the bottom line. We look for opportunities to promote good corporate behavior through long-term investment strategies that consider social and environmental well-being: in other words, sustainable economic growth that will deliver returns over the long term.

The Pebble Mine, a vast gold and copper mine proposed in the headwaters of southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay, is the type of project that runs counter to sustainable economic growth. The mine jeopardizes a vast renewable resource –one that provides 14,000 jobs and an abundant source of healthy seafood that helps feed the world.

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Northern Star goes north to Alaska with $356m gold mine purchase – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – August 30, 2018)

https://www.afr.com/

Northern Star is backing its capacity to replicate the success of its Australian operations and silence any doubters, after taking a first big step offshore with the $US260 million ($356 million) acquisition of a gold mine in Alaska.

The Bill Beament-led Northern Star will become the new owner of the Pogo underground gold mine under a deal with Japanese multinational Sumitomo, and it was quick to compare the acquisition to that of its flagship Jundee mine in Western Australia in 2014.

The deal comes at a time when many Australian gold miners are looking to North America for acquisitions, in an attempt to take advantage of the higher relative valuations that Australian gold stocks have enjoyed compared with North American peers.

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Clean up that damn [British Columbia] mine – by Brian Lynch (Juneau Empire – August 17, 2018)

http://juneauempire.com/

Brian Lynch of Petersburg is a commercial fisheries biologist retired after a 30 year career with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and currently works in Petersburg for Rivers Without Borders on transboundary mining issues.

The Tulsequah Chief mine has been polluting the Taku Watershed with acid mine drainage (AMD) for over 60 years now. This pollution is in violation of British Columbia and Canadian laws and mine permits.

The most recent study done by B.C. found “unacceptable risks” from the toxic drainage. Three years ago the B.C. Mines Minister visited Juneau and promised to remedy the problem, yet nothing has been done. So, why is the pollution still happening?

Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott’s efforts to draw attention to the need for B.C. to promptly and completely close and clean up the mine site have been helpful, but more is needed to get B.C. to move beyond promises and to take action.

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Massive Barrick-Novagold gold mine project in Alaska receives key U.S. environmental permits – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – August 15, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. and Novagold Resources Inc. have been given a key governmental green light to build a massive new gold mine in Alaska, but uncertain economics amid a weakening gold price mean it’s unclear whether the capital-intensive project will ever see the light of day.

In a joint release, Barrick and its junior joint-venture partner Novagold said that they had received a number of U.S. federal government environmental permits that would pave the way for the development of the Donlin Gold project, which the duo first teamed up on more than a decade ago.

Donlin, in southwestern Alaska, is one of the world’s biggest undeveloped gold projects with 39 million ounces of gold held in the economically uncertain “resources” category.

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U.S. officials accuse Canada of sitting on damning data on B.C. mining toxins in a transboundary river – by Bob Weber (Canadian Press/Global News – July 8, 2018)

https://globalnews.ca/

United States officials are accusing their Canadian counterparts of sitting on damning new data about toxic chemicals from southern British Columbia coal mines in water shared by both countries.

In a letter to the U.S. State Department, Americans on the International Joint Commission say Canadian members are blocking the release of information on contaminants that are many times above guideline levels. The commission was created in 1909 as a way to discuss water that crosses the U.S.-Canada border.

The B.C. dispute, brewing for decades, burst open in June when the commission’s two Canadian members refused to endorse a report on selenium in the Elk River watershed just north of the border.

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Critical Minerals Alaska – Cobalt – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – June 22, 2018)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

More EVs, unstable supply put battery metal on US critical minerals list

Cobalt is an essential ingredient to optimizing the performance of batteries in the growing number of electric vehicles on global highways, yet essentially none of this battery metal is mined in the United States. With at least one advanced stage exploration project in Alaska looking into the potential of producing cobalt alongside its copper, America’s 49th State could provide a domestic source for this critical metal.

In its annual report, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2018, the United States Geological Survey forecasts that the rechargeable battery sector is expected to drive the demand of cobalt higher faster than the mining sector will bring new supplies of the battery metal to market.

“As a result, the global cobalt supply was expected to remain limited in the near term,” USGS penned in the annual report. This limited supply could affect more than U.S. carmakers such as Tesla Inc.

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Critical Minerals Alaska – Chromite – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – June 28, 2018)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Essential stainless-steel ingredient mined in Alaska during both World Wars

A vital ingredient in stainless steel and superalloys, chromium is considered by the United States Geological Survey as “one of the Nation’s most important strategic and critical materials.”

“Because there is no viable substitute for chromium in the production of stainless steel and because the United States has small chromium resources, there has been concern about domestic supply during every national military emergency since World War I,” the USGS explains.

Rich chromite deposits on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula were able to ease some of these concerns by providing a domestic supply of chromite, the only mineral of chromium metal, to help fill America’s increased demand for chromium during both World Wars.

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Alaska mineral exploration tops $100M – by Curt Freeman (North of 60 Mining News – June 28, 2018)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

The summer field season is in full bloom across Alaska with programs stretching from the Brooks Range to southeastern Alaska, and from the Yukon border to southwestern Alaska. Exploration targets range from grassroots to mine-site, focused on commodities including gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, cobalt and graphite.

For Alaska’s exploration industry, planned, announced and estimated expenditures are well over the $100 million mark for 2018. This expenditure level is well above last year’s levels and almost double the $58 million spent at the bottom of the market in 2015.

Canadian and Australian companies continue to be the source for the bulk of funds spent in Alaska in 2018, together comprising well over 80 percent of the exploration expenditures earmarked for Alaska.

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The Pebble mine is going nowhere. Time for Northern Dynasty to admit it.- by Mary Ann K. Johnson, Brian Kraft and Norm Van Vactor (Anchorage Daily News – June 27, 2018)

https://www.adn.com/

Mary Ann K. Johnson is a lifelong subsistence user in Bristol Bay, and a board member for the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. Brian Kraft is a pilot and owner of two Bristol Bay sport-fishing lodges. Norm Van Vactor is a Dillingham resident and the CEO of Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation.

Alaskans have much in common with our neighbors in British Columbia. Our histories are tied closely to the use and development of renewable natural resources, which form the backbone of our economies, cultures and lifestyles. We understand the importance of wise stewardship of this natural wealth.

Our home in Bristol Bay is the source of nearly half the world’s wild sockeye salmon: a wild, sustainable food supply for families all over the world. It is the economic driver of our region, and a cultural linchpin. Our lives and businesses center around the monumental pulse of the 30 million-60 million wild salmon that return here, year after year. It’s like no place else on earth.

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Alaska lawmakers call for alliance with other states on Canadian mining issues – by Kevin Gullufsen (Juneau Empire – May 28, 2018)

http://juneauempire.com/

10 legislators call for partnership as Montana, Washington deal with pollution from Canadian mines

A group of Alaska lawmakers wants to team up with Montana and other U.S.-Canada border states in a push to protect Southeast watersheds they say are threatened by rapid Canadian mining development.

In a letter dated April 20 and released Friday, 10 lawmakers ask Gov. Bill Walker to work with other U.S. states and the State Department to further protections for Southeast’s salmon-bearing rivers. Canadian mining development, they say, has continued to put the region’s fishing and tourism industries in peril.

At least a dozen mining projects are moving forward or are operating in the border-crossing Taku, Stikine and Unuk river watersheds, according to Salmon Beyond Borders. Alaska lacks financial protection from any harm the projects could cause to salmon habitat, the lawmakers say.

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Northern Dynasty Sinks Along With First Quantum Alaska Deal – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – May 25, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. plummeted Friday after the collapse of a pact with First Quantum Minerals Ltd. to finance the controversial Pebble mining project in Alaska.

The two companies were unable to reach an agreement on a proposed deal disclosed in December, Northern Dynasty said Friday in a statement. The arrangement would have given a unit of First Quantum an option to earn a 50 percent interest in Pebble in return for $150 million paid over four years to fund permitting.

The project at one of the largest copper and gold deposits has been fraught for years. Effectively banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama, shares of Northern Dynasty surged after Donald Trump’s election victory.

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Pebble Mine: Taking the Battle to the Board Room – Again – by Joel Reynolds (Natural Resources Defense Council – May 07, 2018)

https://www.nrdc.org/

Bristol Bay Coalition Delivers Message of Unrelenting Opposition in Meetings with First Quantum Minerals in Toronto

Sometimes really bad ideas are hard to kill – especially these days. Take, for example, the Pebble Mine, which Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) Administrator Scott Pruitt rescued from its deathbed last May after cutting a deal with the project’s CEO. And just like that this reckless project had a new lease on life – and a new pitch for potential investors.

Last week in Toronto, together with a formidable delegation of leaders from the distant Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska, my NRDC colleague Chris Tackett and I attended the shareholders’ annual general meeting (“AGM”) of Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals and met with its Chair and CEO.

First Quantum, which draws 84% of its revenue from copper mines in Zambia, is looking to expand its operations to the United States by bankrolling the Pebble Mine – now solely owned by Northern Dynasty Minerals, a small Canadian mining exploration company based in Vancouver.

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