As the weather warms and the bugs come out, mining threats
to Northern Alaska also emerge from winter hibernation. This year’s emergence coincides with rising metal
prices driven by developing countries. Historically
a placer mining state, Alaska
sits poised to plunge into a different frontier: mass scale industrial mining, a
dive that will reverberate throughout the state for generations to come.
Alaska state legislators
and regulators encourage the plunge. Compared
to the oil and gas industry, mining companies pay a fractional sum for the
value of the minerals they extract. The
state is willing to exchange mineral development for employment opportunities,
virtually giving away Alaska’s
mineral resources. Unfortunately, state
legislators worry that any change to the current state mining royalty/tax
structure would frighten off the mining industry. However, individual large
hardrock mines currently operating in the state saw huge profits in 2006 alone.
Red Dog Mine turned a $1.1 billion dollar profit in zinc and lead sales last
year, up from $325 million in 2005.
Predictably Teck Cominco, owner of Red Dog, waves a languid hand and
pooh-poohs last year’s profits as a fluke.
State regulators bow to industry with efforts to
“streamline” mine permitting processes and speed mine development. Unfortunately, this process ends up drowning the
public in paperwork during short comment periods. Last summer with the Rock Creek gold mine, near
Nome, state regulators released all
the major permits during one 30 day comment period. Concerned citizens had to wade through technical
documents and individual permits, all together totaling several hundred pages. Locals felt overwhelmed and many failed to
comment as a result. State regulators
consider Rock Creek a successful pilot for the newly trim permitting process.
In addition to “streamlining” the state permitting process,
the state seeks to assume control, or primacy, of EPA’s National Pollution
Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program.
NPDES permitting is intended to ensure that our lakes, rivers, streams
and coastal estuaries and seas are clean enough for children to swim and
healthy enough for aquatic life to thrive.
In order to gain primacy over the program, Alaska
must adopt regulations at least as stringent as federal regulations. Upon assuming state control, Alaska
will have to staff and fund a Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) program
to the tune of $2.5 million dollars a year, money the state can ill afford. Other primacy concerns center around tribal
consultation: the EPA, as a federal agency, is required to consult with tribal
governments when reviewing permit applications, whereas the state does not
consider itself obligated to confer with tribes. Villages and tribal councils fear losing
their voice when the state takes control of the NPDES program.
The view from the precipice of mass scale industrial mining
is clear. Alaska
has immense mineral resources, companies seeking to exploit those resources, and
a timid government. Alaskans – for the
most part – derive no benefit from the mining industry but stand to pay legacy
costs of poor or pliant regulatory schemes.
This state is full of wildlife and scenic views which are easily damaged
by the disfiguring and, often times, toxic mining industry. The Northern
Center will continue to advocate for
a fair return to the state as well as for environmentally beneficial state and
federal regulatory regimes.
