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Vancouver Sun Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Kemess North Copper-Gold Mine Project ( final review )
"In our minds, we've written it off and moved on," Stowe told analysts on a conference call to discuss the company's $34-million profit in 2007.
"If I never have to say the words Kemess North again, that's fine with me. My future does not include Kemess North," Stowe said in response to a question on whether the company had any plans to try to resurrect the project.
The mine proposal was rejected by a joint B.C. and Canadian government environmental review panel in September. The rejection was considered rare as most provincial and federal environmental review processes give the green light to resource developments, although sometimes with conditions.
At the time, Northgate Minerals said it would review the details of the panel decision, as well as speaking with federal and provincial authorities in order to fully understand the decision and determine how to proceed.
It is the provincial and federal government ultimately which have responsibility to make a decision on the project.
Northgate had noted that while the panel had recommended the project no go ahead, the panel had acknowledged the governments could disagree and approve the project. A similar position had been taken by the B.C. Mining Association.
First Nations that had opposed the project had cheered the panel decision, but remained concerned the governments might approve it anyway.
First Nations were opposed to the use of the Duncan Lake, called Amazay in their language, to dump mine waste. Northgate said it was the best environmental option, and the only economically viable one: $200 million versus the next best option at $1 billion.
The project, a second open pit north of the existing Kemess South mine, would have extended the life of the existing operation another decade.
Northgate also argued approval for Kemess North would help secure the 350 existing jobs at the mine and the nearly $60 million pumped each year into northern B.C.'s economy on services, goods and payroll, half of that in Prince George.
In the conference call on Friday, Northgate focused on its purchase of a mining company in Australia and its efforts to develop a mine in Ontario.
The Cook Inlet Alliance Letter in response to Kenai City Council Resolution no. 2007-38
What Questions should be asked about the Proposed Pebble Mine?
Letter to our Members and Friends
Bristol Bay and Lake Iliamna watersheds are threatened by a massive poposed open-pit mining district and this could mean that Alaska’s Wild Salmon will be spawning in toxic waters, or not spawning at all...
Many Alaskans have heard of the proposed Pebble Mine, but few realize that Pebble would be a small part of an enormous mining district that could eventually span thousands of square miles of the Bristol Bay Watershed.
Northern Dynasty, a junior company that has never reported a profit and has never developed a mine on its own, is pressing for the construction of its Pebble Mine because it claims to have found one of the largest gold deposits on the continent, potentially worth billions to the Canadian company.
These corporate claims may or may not be accurate but the hype abounds.
The Pebble Claim Block sits in the headwaters of the Koktuli, Mulchatna, Nushagak and Kvichak Rivers, and recent mineral discoveries could push the pit toward the headwaters of Upper Talarik Creek and its trophy trout fishery.
The Pebble Claim Block covers 87 square miles and is located just 19 miles west of the village of Iliamna. If developed, the proposed Pebble Mine would be just one "small" part of a massive mining district that would carve the heart out of the Bristol Bay Watershed.
The Pebble Proposal (black) is just one small part of a 540 square
mile contiguous claim block near Lake Iliamna.
The mine would include a pit more than 2 miles wide and 1/3 mile deep. A claim block adjacent to Pebble, known as "Big Chunk" covers 237 square miles. The development would undoubtedly have dramatic negative affects on two major drainages—the Kvichak and the Nushagak, thus affecting many native communities that should have the right to continue their traditional subsistence lifestyle.
All this in an area widely considered "the last great salmon fishery" and the Pacific Salmon's last intact stronghold in North America.
Inspired by Northern Dynasty Minerals (a subsidiary company controlled by Vancouver, Canada-based Hunter Dickinson) and its attempts to develop the Pebble Mine, many other companies are leaping into the fray. Their new satellite claims (Download Map Here-Large, 1.5MB file) are spreading across a much larger area throughout the Bristol Bay Watershed. An enormous, costly industrial road system would link the mines to the west side of Cook Inlet.
The development plans will dam most of this valley for a 20 square mile toxic tailings pond that might require the rerouting of the Koktuli River.
A 75-mile long industrial road from a port on the West side of Cook Inlet would be built and this proposed road would cross many salmon spawning streams and will pass near the village of Pedro Bay. Just one mine might require as many as 60 large trucks traveling back and forth on this road 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 30 or more years.
Currently, there are at least 746 square miles of land claimed by at least 8 different mining companies north of Lake Illiamna. These lands are adjacent to or some miles distant from the Northern Dynasty claims. Once one mine is up and running and the infrastructure is in place, satellite mines would most likely be developed throughout the region, requiring more industrial roads and dumping more mining waste into our waters.
Northern Dynasty has stated that it will be the state agencies’ responsibility to regulate the mines, and that they will follow the guidelines given to them by these agencies. But the mining laws of the United States do not adequately protect the people that live near these mines and depend upon a healthy habitat and clean water to survive.
According to its track record protecting citizens’ rights in previous mining projects, state and federal government agencies do not have the manpower, ability, or desire to prevent or adequately mitigate the impacts these mines would have on our waters and habitat. State agencies are currently being reimbursed by Northern Dynasty for preliminary work that is being done to prepare for their application for a permit.
“To say environmentalists and commercial and sportfishermen are apprehensive is a gross understatement. Were someone to ask where in Alaska I would least wish to see a project of this nature, I'd be hard-pressed to find one less desirable.”
-Jay Hammond, former Alaska governor and resident of the Bristol Bay Watershed.
“This mine could bring, maybe, 50 years of jobs for a number of people but the jobs for local people will be labor jobs. It’s a boom and then it’s gone. For a while we’ll have jobs and maybe more opportunities but what will we have left if we have no fish and no wildlife. The disruption the mine will cause to our way of life and 50 years later it’s gone, what is left then? No jobs, alcohol and drug abuse, depression, social devastation.”
-Karen Stickman, Native of Nondalton in the Bristol Bay Watershed.
“The Nushagak River remains as
vital as ever: It’s a passageway for travelers moving from coastal
Alaska into the Interior; it’s a world-class hunting and fishing
destination, and thankfully, after thousands of years without
change, it’s still a home to Alaska Natives, still a
waterborne protector of their way of life.”
-Troy Letherman, Editor of Fish
Alaska Magazine, Dec. ‘04
“Bristol Bay is the largest commercial sockeye salmon
fishery in the world.”
-Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Commercial Fisheries.
“This area is the foundation
of local native people. People have lived and survived there
without a mine for centuries. If this mine happens, my grandchildren
won’t see the way of life that I have seen or that my
children have seen.”
-Karen Stickman, Native
of Nondalton in the Bristol Bay Watershed.
“Southwest Alaska’s
Nushagak River has a well-deserved reputation as being the
best king salmon
stream on the planet.”
-J.D. Richey, in Fish Alaska
Magazine, Dec. ‘04
“I’d
love to see my grand kids use the subsistence way of life
I have been using here for 50 years.”
-Native elder and resident of
the Nushagak drainage speaking in December 2004.
“It’s an area of prepossessing
beauty, as scenic as it is vast and untamed…I can think
of few places in its class.”
-Troy Letherman, Editor of Fish
Alaska Magazine, Dec. ‘04
“The
Bristol Bay-Lake Iliamna area is a special place. These pure
waters and healthy spawning grounds support a large subsistence
population, the largest commercial fishery in the world, and
a very solid spot fishing industry that provides the State
of Alaska with over $50 Million a year in renewable revenue.
An enormous open pit mine district will forever change
the traditional subsistence way of life and could ruin our
world renown sport and commercial fishery. This proposed mining
district is not a done deal and we want to have a voice in
what happens to our lands. The people that have lived
her for thousands of years should be the ones that make the
decision as to what happens to their lands and their waters.”
-Brian
Kraft, owner of the Alaska Sportsman’s Lodge and Executive
Director of the Bristol Bay Alliance
“The Nushagak produces fish—Chinook,
chum, sockeye, pink, or coho salmon, resident trout, sea-run
Dolly Varden, grayling, or pike…Whatever the quarry, they can
be found in abundance somewhere in the system.”
-Troy Letherman, Editor of Fish
Alaska Magazine, Dec. ‘04
“Bristol Bay sockeye salmon account for over 33% of
the total value of the State's salmon fisheries.”
-Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Commercial Fisheries.
“The Nushagak, a river system
of extraordinary size and diversity, is southwest Alaska’s
largest clearwater system.”
-Troy Letherman, Editor of Fish
Alaska Magazine, Dec. ‘04
“…this
wide powerful river delivers the hottest big Chinook fishing
that most
anglers are likely
ever to experience.”
-Terry
W. Sheely in Fish Alaska
Magazine, Dec. ‘04
“…the
Koktuli is one of the best of all the Nushagak system tributaries
for salmon fishing.”
-Troy Letherman, quoting state
fisheries officials.
“Alaska accounts for 95% of all Pacific
salmon landings in the United States due in large part to
Bristol Bay salmon harvests.”
-Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Commercial Fisheries.
“The Nushagak definitely stands
out among the rivers of the Bristol Bay region and probably statewide
because of the variety of opportunity, and that includes both
the chance to fish for a number of different species and the
fact that the system’s diversity lends itself well to
the accommodation of all types of users.”
-Troy Letherman, Editor of Fish
Alaska Magazine, Dec. ‘04
“The mainstem Nushagak River is
approximately 275 miles long, and in that distance one can encounter
the complete spectrum of freshwater angling opportunity…”
-Troy Letherman, quoting state
fisheries officials.
