Alaska’s congressional delegation clearly understands that Alaska has much to lose and little to gain from Canadian mines in the headwaters of major Southeast Alaska salmon rivers.
In 2014, U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry with the concerns of Alaska Natives, commercial fishermen, and tourism industry stakeholders about mines like the Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell on the Unuk River.
In 2016, Sen. Dan Sullivan joined them in a joint letter to Kerry about threats to the Stikine, Taku and Unuk, urging talks with the government of British Columbia. Gov. Bill Walker, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, and Reps. Dan Ortiz, Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins, Chris Tuck, Geran Tarr, and Justin Parish have taken similar commendable steps.
Yet the Chilkat River near Haines, one of the five great transboundary salmon producers of Southeast Alaska, is missing from the conversation. With all five species of salmon, and the proposed Palmer Project mine currently in the “exploration” (early development) stage immediately upriver from spawning grounds and the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, the Chilkat deserves the same attention as its more southerly counterparts. It may be that although the Chilkat is a transboundary river, both the mine and the salmon are on the U.S. side of the border.
As with mines upstream of the Alaska border, the threat is acid mine drainage. Picture a leaking car battery on the bank of your favorite river. Multiply this image by several million.
Sulfuric acid is created when underground rock from high sulfide mineral deposits is brought to the surface and exposed to air and water. This sulfuric acid then leaches heavy metals and other contaminants into the river. The comparison to battery acid is not exaggerated; in 2000, U.S. Geological Survey scientists recorded the world’s most acidic water in an abandoned copper and zinc mine near Redding, California with a pH over 1,000 times more acidic than battery acid. This has caused periodic fish kills in the Sacramento River since the 1940s.
Copper is useful and beautiful. But it is the last thing you want in a salmon river. Toxic to aquatic organisms, it also interferes with salmon’s ability to find its home river and to adapt to the change from fresh water to salt water and vice versa. Nor are chromium, lead, cadmium, nickel, silver or other metals leached from mine tailings healthy for fish and creatures that eat them. Acid mine drainage can be almost impossible to stop and may last many centuries.
State Department talks with the B.C. government regarding mining along the Chilkat on the U.S. side of the border may not be appropriate. But another way to bring the Chilkat into the spotlight is a proposal by people who stand to lose the most. Immediately downstream of the mine site is the Tlingit village of Klukwan, where the people have lived since time immemorial on the banks of the Chilkat. Salmon are not just food but an integral part of their culture. One respected elder has stated, “I can’t imagine a world without salmon.” In 2016, Chilkat Indian Village, the governmental entity of Klukwan, proposed designating the river an Outstanding Natural Resource Water, or Tier 3. The federal Clean Water Act mandates a nomination process for such designation, but the state has refused for decades to create a mechanism to process nominations.
Tier 3 designation does not say “No mine!” It just says to respect the river by prohibiting toxic wastewater discharges.
Mines have falsely claimed for decades that they will operate without polluting, that modern technology will prevent the countless disasters that mining brings to aquatic resources and people who depend on them. Tier 3 seems a reasonable compromise with the mining industry, and would give Constantine a chance to prove they can mine while minimizing the risk to Chilkat River salmon. There is too much at stake to gamble recklessly with this great river.
• Eric Holle is President of Lynn Canal Conservation in Haines.
