The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 176
With the price of gold through the roof, now is a good time to be a gold miner in Alaska, but then again, it always has been. I have been ambling around Western Europe for the past few weeks. Wherever I go, I run into the same issue – there are a lot of people-watchers who fret about the pending Presidential election in the United States. My reaction is to urge them not to dismay; America has hosted bulls in the china shop before, and if that is what comes, so be it. My a...
The federal district court has come to the rescue of the state with regard to unwarranted closure of millions of acres of arctic waters. On April 1, 2022, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a final rule designating in excess of 160 million acres of the Bering, Chukchi, Beaufort and East Siberian seas critical habitat for the Beringia distinct population segments of the bearded seal and the Arctic ringed seal. In February 2023, the state of Alaska initiated...
Now is the time to be optimistic about the future because the 2024 version of the Hatfields and the McCoys has run out of steam. I have long felt that mining will be the workhorse industry for Alaska. The state is vast, and the deposits are remote. Furthermore, they tend to be large. Unhappily, the political environment has, for about 75 years, been antagonistic toward mining based on a series of specious issues. Mines are unsafe, so they say. But a worker in a government...
Although it seems to be a song without end, it is election time again, and that means we can, once again, have hope for Alaska's future. As a general rule, national politics are pretty much irrelevant to Alaskans, if only because the results of the quadrennial Presidential election are usually called before the polls in Alaska close. This year, going into July, the race between Biden and Trump was nip and tuck. From my cynical bench, it appeared to be a question of whom you...
Secretary of the Interior Haaland is fighting a Congressional Review deadline to ensure that the Ambler Road is blocked now. For those who haven't been paying attention lately, Senator Murkowski has weighed in strongly on behalf of the Alaska mining industry several times in the past few months. First, at a meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, she used her time to sternly admonish Interior Secretary Haaland about the BLM's decision to block the Ambler...
The Bureau of Land Management has struck again, this time in the form of a land management plan for the Central Yukon Resource Management Area or the "CYRMP" (pronounced crimp). The CYRMP and the associated Final Environmental Impact Statement, dated April 2024, will have significant adverse effects on the future of mining in Alaska because of the intent to adopt hybrid Alternative E that will effectively foreclose vast acreage in the state to mineral exploration and...
After four years of intensive work and an appeal, a placer mining company finally secures a keystone permit from the Army Corps. I am not in the custom of speaking about matters that I have worked on; however, in this case, I thought it desirable to make note of a recent development with regard to placer mining in Alaska's coastal wetlands. IPOP, LLC, sought permission to mine on State of Alaska mining claims in Bonanza Channel, approximately 25 miles east of Nome. The area is...
No matter how the 2024 Presidential election may unfold, our Congressional delegation must resuscitate the Ambler Access Project. On August 19, 1980, then-Senator Joseph Biden, along with 77 other Senators, cast a vote in support of HR 39, as amended, now known as the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). Senator Ted Stevens had invested nearly a decade of his life in bringing this vital piece of legislation to the Senate floor. ANILCA's roots were in the...
Each year, I enjoy traveling to Vancouver, B.C., to attend what used to be called the Cordilleran Roundup, sponsored by the Association for Mineral Exploration of British Columbia. It is always a worthwhile exercise if, for no other reason than on the Wednesday night during the convention, the Alaska Miners Association sponsors "Alaska Night," which is a foodfest without peer (and with lots of beer) for all registered comers. Generally, Alaska Night is an opportunity to rub...
For those who pay attention to such things, it appears that a new invasive species of environmentalism has crept onto the scene. I count it as an inevitable evolution of the movement, inasmuch as the deep thinkers on the subject apparently have identified schisms in their religious beliefs. For the past several decades, it was sufficient to be a banana Greenie – those who are basically against anything, anytime, anywhere. They were quite predictable, especially when it comes t...
I suspect that almost everyone is familiar with the "word clouds" that are sometimes used by the media to identify issues ostensibly important to the American public. Pick a subject, and the associated reference appears in the word cloud in a size and typeface that reflects that subject's relative importance. Of course, the rule of "garbage in – garbage out" dominates, so I suppose word clouds are just another fancy way to say nothing. On the other hand, I was recently i...
Somehow, for those of us who follow the mining industry in Alaska, the first full week of November marks not the end but the beginning of the mining New Year. AMA conventions have occurred in this window for at least the last 45 years, and every year, although always different, in a larger sense, it is always the same. Miners and support industry entities gather in Anchorage to compare notes and make deals that will govern their activities for the ensuing year. It is a hugely...
Generally, when there is a turn of the screw in DC, the pundits bombard the media with insight and analysis, often drawn on their experience with analogous events. Tuesday's vote to unseat the Speaker of the House somehow seems a little different since there is little precedent and even less Constitutional guidance as to what our leaders are to do next. Contextually, we are in a bit of a dilemma. President Biden embraced an aggressive liberal agenda that contemplates the...
On August 28, the EPA announced a revision to the jurisdictional regulations concerning waters of the United States to conform to the holding in Sackett v. EPA, 598 U.S., decided May 25, 2023. "[A]s a result of the decision in Sackett invalidating the significant nexus standard, the provision for assessment of streams and wetlands ... is no longer valid ... ." The Sackett decision potentially impacts the determination of the EPA to permanently block the development of any...
They say that just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. That certainly is the case with regard to America's Administrative State. Some of us have lived and breathed the National Environmental Policy Act, "NEPA," for over 50 years and have watched the piles of worthless Environmental Impact Statements stack up in dusty corners, like cordwood beside a rustic cabin, fit more for the heat they may generate than any light they may produce. The Council...
With all due apologies to our Canadian friends (who celebrate their independence on Saturday), next Tuesday is our big day! Cynicism aside, it is time to recognize just how great America is in general and Alaska is in particular. Gender issues, abortion issues, gun issues, immigration issues, issues with big government, issues with state and local governments, issues with criminal trespassers on the capitol grounds, issues with the criminal prosecutions of a former President...
Mark your calendar. June 30, 2023, will be just one more Day in Infamy when catastrophic changes at the hands of the Bureau of Land Management will reach their nadir. (These days, it seems, everything that the government wants to do is "catastrophic!") On April 3, the BLM promulgated its Conservation and Landscape Health Proposed Rule. In its own words, the rule would "advance the BLM's mission to manage the public lands for multiple use and sustained yield by prioritizing...
Let's talk about electric car batteries, their mineral content, the source of the minerals, and where those minerals are refined. Generally speaking, according to a recent piece in the Washington Post, electric car batteries weigh about 900 pounds – 900 pounds of minerals that have to be mined, refined, combined and shaped, fitted and installed into cars – cars that are being pushed onto the American public because they don't require polluting gasoline. We are told that electr...
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980, as every Alaska school child should know, was a great compromise, engineered by Senator Ted Stevens and supported even by then-Senator Joe Biden. In a 1980 speech on the Senate floor, Senator Biden said, "This legislation will protect some of the most beautiful and pristine lands in the world. It will provide for the wise use of our natural resources. And it will ensure that Alaska's economy will continue...
As America gravitates toward an increasingly strong central government, the disparity of the regulatory system is becoming increasingly blatant. This is not the view of a few, it is the concern of the many. Too often the problem is politicized. The left wants more government, the right wants less. But this problem is not a political football. It is a national problem with an available solution. Beginning in the earliest days of the nation, there was tension with regard to how...
If you have paid any attention to the news lately, you are aware that the National Debt exceeds $30 trillion dollars and our Gross Domestic Product is a little over $26 trillion, so we are literally borrowing ourselves rich. The National Debt Ceiling is $31.4 trillion, so Congress is confronted with the grim choice of raising the debt limit or not being able to pay our national bills. Naturally, there is a lot of controversy over how Congress should proceed. Remarkably, some...
At long last the new year is here! Behind us are the floods, blizzards, pandemics, elections, and the vast array of distractions that have clouded our skies. It is time to get down to business. First, the good news – we won't have another election for about 22 months. In addition, the Congress of the United States is in a state of equipoise. The House has a Republican majority, and the House controls the national purse strings; so federal spending hopefully will be under c...
It is always wise to count our blessings, especially halfway between election day and Christmas. I juxtapose those dates because the seasonal background noise is seamless. Election day blends into Thanksgiving, which blends into Black Friday, which blends into Merry Christmas. Ho! Ho! Ho! It crosses my mind, however, that the issues that fall off the table, such as ambient carbon dioxide and supporting Ukraine's sovereignty, simply get lost in the plum sauce. The popular...
Politically, the United States has been on a long slow drift to the left ever since Franklin Roosevelt threatened to expand the Supreme Court in 1937 in order to get his progressive agenda back on track. Through a cascade of political divisions, from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the abandonment of Kabul, the left-right divisions of the electorate have divided the country; but the ship of state has consistently incrementally edged forward, veering slightly to port....
Being cynical by nature, and having a solid distrust of the integrity of the popular press, it crosses my mind that the political determination of the United States and its NATO allies to dump our sacred treasure, if not our blood, into the defense of Ukraine precipitates a serious question: Why? When all else fails, I tend to fall back on the wisdom of the ages as generally manifested by bumper sticker memes like "follow the money." In the case of Ukraine (not unlike...
