The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The Chuitna coal project has long been on the kill list for the environmental conflicts Industry. Litigation against the government is among the Enviro-Cons' favorite tools. For reasons that sometimes defy understanding, the courts view such litigation as somehow being in the public interest; and, accordingly, cut this particular ilk of non-governmental organization far more slack than can be justified by reason. At one point, a generation ago, it made a modicum of good sense...
Tom Kizzia has written a biographical account of the life and times of Robert Hale, who some folks will recall was a high-profile figure in the fight of in-holders to secure their statutory right to access their property in the middle of the past decade. Although the relevance of Hale to the history of Alaska was his conflict with the National Park Service in the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park, Kizzia, unfortunately, takes the reader on a long and torturous frolic and deto...
All the rhetoric in the world will not be sufficient to mobilize the electorate to get off its collective derrière and fulfill its sacred duty to vote, unless the subject matter strikes a personal chord. I am mindful of the recent plebiscite in the United Kingdom where the question was up or down of whether Scotland should cease to be a part of Great Britain. Well over 80 percent of the eligible voters actually cast their ballots, and in some jurisdictions the vote...
The recent dam breach at the Mount Polley Mine in British Columbia has precipitated a bit of consternation among the Pebble Project watchers on both sides of the issue. Predictably, the naysayers have adopted an "I told you so" response, as if there are relevant similarities between what was constructed at Mount Polley, on the one hand, and anything that might be installed at a future mine at Pebble on the other; while the supporters of Pebble although mourning the event,...
I have long mused over the difference in how people solve problems. Every time we are confronted with an election, the debate resurfaces. One would suppose that individuals trained in analytical thinking would be inclined to reach conclusions lineally, consistent with the Socratic syllogism in which conclusions are based upon facts. In the course of my career, I have long dealt with individuals who are trained in the "hard" sciences, such as geologists and engineers. They tend to base their judgments on the thesis that "if...
I have often mused about why the mining industry is held in such disdain in the United States today. It wasn't always that way. When I was a child, the mining industry was the subject of song and saga, and before that, there was the day when the incessant stamp mills of mines like the A.J. in Juneau were the sound of a full lunch pail. People respected hard work and knew intuitively that basic industries were from whence our raw materials evolved into consumer goods that made...
The Spring Conference of the Alaska Miners Association was held in Fairbanks last week at a new location. The fact that the conference was held in a larger facility and was very well-attended verifies that despite the ongoing assaults the industry is experiencing, there is no shortage of optimism in the field. The trade show boasted over 130 vendor booths and the overall registration well-exceeded 300. A significant part of the discussions related to the future of the Pebble...
On March 13, 2014, Gov. Parnell released a report of Special Counsel Brent Cole on the federal Criminal Compliance Investigation conducted in the Fortymile mining district between Aug. 19 and Aug. 23 last year. The report is not lengthy and is available on the Internet for all to review. To be clear, the report found no evidence of criminal misconduct on the part of the investigators. But the report does underscore and lay bare a significant problem with the way the...
Although in my judgment it is premature for little green people to write the obituary of the Pebble Project, undoubtedly it is high-centered for the nonce, (however long a nonce may be); but that shouldn't prevent us from reflecting on some of the silly arguments that have been made against the project. Undoubtedly, the greatest success in that regard was the implication that somehow the project, if it evolved into a mine, would somehow make fish in Bristol Bay die. The outspoken proponents of that point of view, generally sp...
As a co-chairman of the Federal Oversight Committee of the Alaska Miners Association for the past many years, it is interesting to me to see how the flow of new tinkering with the conduct of local affairs ebbs and flows at various stages of an incumbent federal administration. The federal government still owns more 27 percent of our nation's land, concentrated in the 11 contiguous western states and Alaska. About 225 million acres, or 62 percent, of our state falls into that category. Therefore, land management is of...
On the theory that making the loser pay for at least a portion of the fees and costs associated with litigation lacks merit, the Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure recite that on application and subject to judicial oversight, the prevailing party may secure an award of the costs and a portion of the attorney's fees incurred by the prevailing party at the conclusion of a lawsuit brought in the courts of this state. At first blush this might seem like a sound rule; however, it has always been subject to debate, primarily because...
At the end of October this year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska handed down a case brought by Alaskan John Sturgeon, as another in a long list of decisions upholding the federal government's power to circumscribe our rights to use reasonable and appropriate methods of access to remote areas of the State. Without criticizing either the outcome or the reasoning that was used to achieve that outcome, this case, if it withstands appeal, will be just one additional landmark along the way to the apparent...
Many concerned Alaskans may have read former State Senator Clem Tillion's op-ed piece in the July 2, 2013, issue of the Alaska Dispatch concerning the royalty that might be paid to the people of Alaska should the Pebble Project one day become a mine. Sen. Tillion argues that at current rates, the royalties to the state would be insufficient to justify allowing the Pebble Project to go forward. His message seems to be that developing Alaska's resources, when properly...
Here's an open letter to Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska: Dear Sen. Begich, Last week, I had the privilege to sit in on a constituent teleconference with you concerning a number of issues confronting Alaska. During the course of your comments, and in response to a question concerning the Pebble Project, you indicated that you were reserving judgment until EPA's pending Bristol Bay Assessment was complete. Implicitly, you suggested that the assessment was entitled to great weight,...
Each year about this time, the sun begins to shine like never before, the rivers rise and the ice melts, the daylight hours grow longer, and miners across Alaska bend their shoulders to their avocation. While it is true that the endless problems we all face don't go away; nonetheless, they seem to take their place as a part of the background noise with which we have to deal while getting on with the real business of life. Somehow, despite the unending bickering in Washington,...
About 2,500 years ago, Heraclitus of Ephesus observed that the only constant is change. Looking out the window on a snowy Alaska April morning brings this observation home once again. It is amusing to reflect on the acrimony associated with "global warming," which was renamed "climate change" when it became apparent that the last decade has not proven to be as warm as the preceding decade. As one observer put it, "global temperatures are warmer than about 75 percent of...
It has been a long time since we have had a president who has hailed from a public lands state and, even though we have had some secretaries of the Interior from the West, they have ranged from the inept to total disaster. For reasons that are undoubtedly our own fault, not only do the unscrubbed masses seem not to know or care where the raw materials that make our modern community work come from, but the intelligentsia in command seem blithely indifferent to the health and...
With the re-inauguration of the President, Alaska's miners are being forced to hunker down and withstand yet another election cycle wondering what gifts the federal agencies will bestow upon us now. Interior Secretary Salazar is out. His replacement has yet to be identified; however, there is little room to be optimistic. Even under friendly administrations, the selection of Secretary of the Interior has not served us well. The environmentalist community undoubtedly has the...
There are those who walk among us who move the earth with a simple smile. One such being was the late David Stone, whose untimely passing on Nov. 20, 2012 leaves us with a hole in our hearts. Although David was not born here - he moved to Alaska in his early teens - he was an Alaskan through and through. He loved Juneau and the historic mines that had ceased production nearly three decades before his arrival. He loved to explore the tunnels and chambers of the...
For reasons that escape me at the moment, the re-election of President Obama brings to mind another fairy-tale administration that led our nation barely 50 years ago. To be sure, it was a different era with different priorities and prejudices, but it captured for America a mystical place which few could hope to visit, but which everyone wanted to reach for - a rock candy world without the cavities. Realists cynically shake their heads in wonder at the ragtag troupe that...
On Oct.15, 2012, Joseph A. Main, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health announced that "recently finalized data shows that in 2011, fatality and injury rates were the lowest in history." Main went on to say that "in the Metal/Nonmetal mining sector, the fatal injury rate was .0084 per 200,000 hours worked and the all-injury rate was 2.28 per 200,000 hours worked." He said, "No miner should have to die on the job just to earn a paycheck," and we all agree. Nota...
Among the many blessings the founders of our Republic bestowed upon us is the incredibly good idea of having our national executive isolated from the legislative and judicial branches. In most parliamentary democracies, the head of the legislative branch is also the de facto head of the executive branch, so he (or she) gets to appropriate the money and then spend it. Under our system, by contrast, the executive gets to print money, and he is almost to the point where he...
Perhaps it's just me, but this year's election cycle seems to have an uncharacteristically high level of venom and spleen, at least at the national level. The words "hate" and "liar" seem to have all of a sudden become politically correct in a macabre kind of way. We in Alaska, however, are going to have to watch from the sidelines due to the fact that there is no U. S. Senate race here and with our mere three electoral votes, we simply are not going to be a feather in the wind of the Presidential race. Instead, we will have...
The very founding of our country was premised upon resistance to governmental excesses. Authors and movie producers from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged ("A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.") to Steven Spielberg's "Men in Black" (Bug: "Place your projectile weapon on the ground." Edgar: "You can have my gun, when you pry it from my cold dead fingers." Bug: "Your proposal is acceptable.") have warned us against the...
