Despite recommendations from the City Manager and others, Juneau’s Mayor appointed a panel of only three Assembly members to consider unraveling the current Mining Ordinance to make it easier to reopen the Alaska-Juneau Mine. To say this is irresponsible is an understatement. The current Mining Ordinance took months of hard work from an array of diverse, knowledgeable stakeholders. It makes it possible for the city to manage key decisions that would impact Juneau citizens and begs the question why anyone would want to minimize that control.
At the last Assembly meeting, I shared a bit of Flint, Michigan, history that every public official should understand with regard to civic responsibility and placing too much power in the hands of too few.
In 2013, Flint Michigan’s water supply fund was $9 million in the red. To cut costs, the City Council voted to switch the city’s water supply to a less expensive option resulting in the use of Flint River water. As early as the ‘70s, the Flint River was known to contain multiple toxic substances. Additionally, the already tainted water was not treated with anti-corrosives and lead from old pipelines began to leach in to the city’s water. A disaster unfolded as the nation watched Flint officials struggle to clean up their act and their water.
In 2015:
• Concerned citizens sued the City of Flint because city officials seemed incapable or unwilling to protect residents. The City Attorney dismissed the suit.
• After an investigation, the ACLU warned citizens of the danger. In response, the Flint Mayor drank a cup of water on TV to assure citizens that the water was safe. It wasn’t.
• A Virginia Tech research team found 40 percent of homes served had elevated levels of lead in the water.
• Led by a pediatrician, the Hurley Medical Center released a study revealing that the number of children with elevated lead levels in the blood had doubled since the water source had been changed.
In November 2015, residents filed a federal class action lawsuit claiming 14 city and state officials, including the Governor, had knowingly exposed Flint residents to toxic water. Ultimately, criminal charges were filed against several Flint officials involved in flawed, careless decision making and cover ups.
Michigan’s Attorney General later stated, “The Flint water crisis was and is a failure of leadership. A cause of the breakdown in management was a fixation, a preoccupation with data, finances and costs, instead of placing the health, safety and welfare of citizens first”.
This history lesson points out that public officials — first and foremost — must prioritize the health and safety of their community. The Flint residents, scientists, pediatricians, university professors and lawyers who tried to inform Flint officials of their failure to ensure public safety were not a “mob” — the term used by a Juneau Assembly member to describe those of us supporting the current Mining Ordinance. They were a minority who had the time, education and expertise to represent the majority’s interests because Flint city officials had clearly chosen to ignore public safety.
In June, Juneau Assembly members were also chided to not “skirt the issues” or “cave to the minority.” I agree. The Assembly needs to grow a backbone and refuse to cave to a few people who put economic gain over public safety and issues of public concern. If the existing Ordinance is weak in some regard, do the heavy lifting required to thoroughly review proposed changes to the ordinance as a Committee of the Whole so that assembly members actually understand the details before unraveling months of thoughtful, collaborative work. We are relying on you — we elected you — to uphold community health and safety first and foremost.
We all want a vibrant economy with meaningful jobs and training for those jobs. Let’s focus on 21st century jobs that do not put our community at risk. At every economic downturn, AJ proponents emerge with claims they can save the day with jobs if we’d simply eliminate all that pesky oversight that ensures public protection. Our current, thoughtfully crafted ordinance puts Juneau in a position to determine that any proposed project is safe, viable and in Juneau’s interest before we are the next Flint, Michigan.
• Deborah Craig has lived in Juneau since 1982.
