I THINK MINING

Is Coeur d’Alene’s Kensington Mine, Alaska a victim of the politics of the proposed Pebble Mine, Alaska? Rio Tinto has invested $1.3 billion in the Pebble deposit which could yield $300 billion worth of gold and copper. Along with Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. of Vancouver, international mining groups Rio Tinto and now Anglo American will face uphill opposition to opening a mine in the headwaters of salmon spawning rivers. As the Los Angeles Times notes:

The outcome may hinge less on environmental values than on which economic resource Alaskans value most. “You can’t eat gold,” says Robin Samuelsen, a commercial fisherman and chief of the Curyung Tribal Council in Dillingham, the region’s principal town. Bristol Bay’s fishery, with $450 million in annual economic benefits, employs 10,000 people in seasonal jobs, including 6,800 fishermen. And it could grow in value: Because contaminants in farmed seafood have come to light, consumers are increasingly turning to wild salmon for health benefits and its superior taste. This time of year, the rivers that feed Bristol Bay are bedecked with racks of drying salmon, ready to be stored for the winter. In an area where imported food is prohibitively expensive, several thousand Athabaskan Indians and Yupik Eskimos depend on fish, moose, caribou, wild greens and berries. “I’d rather eat porcupine than hamburger,” says Jack Hobson, tribal council president of Nondalton, the village closest to the proposed mine. An Athabaskan outpost of about 220 residents, with its homes of weathered clapboard and corrugated steel, scattered along a dirt road, is plastered with anti-Pebble signs.

Kensington Mine is geographically a long way-a-way: way down the panhandle just north of Juneau. Greens Creek is nearby Juneau on Admiralty Island. They deposit their tailings dry and stabilized into a new topographic form just besides Hawk Inlet. Many years ago I was part of the first team to seek out a site for the Greens Creek tailings. I spent two perfect summers in the Cannery drilling the site and designing an impoundment layout, so I have a sort of soft spot for the area. At that time I had not yet heard the term “wetland.”

The question of whether Kensington should do the same as Greens Creek is in the news again. Seems like the politics is dirty. Mr. Wheeler of Coeur d’Alene accuses the NGOs of lying. Mineweb reports:

“SEACC, Sierra Club and Lynn Canal Conservation have told you that no mine has been granted approval to place tailings in the waters of the U.S. since the passage of the Clear Water Act. In fact, Greens Creek, Pogo and Fort Knox, only to mention a few, have been approved by the Corps of Engineers, EPA and the Alaska Department of Conservation to place treated tailings into waters of the U.S. after exhaustive studies and a permitting process unlike Kensington. These are state-of-the-art projects, just like Kensington, and include treated tailings placements into waters of the United States, be it wetlands, diverted streams or small non-productive lakes. It is possible to place tailings very inertly, without harm to the environment in the areas surrounding well-placed mining projects.” Wheeler also questioned why the environmental opposition would now state that it supports dry tailings disposal for the site when the previously approved dry tailings plan would have resulted in a net loss of more than 160 acres while the Lower Slate Lake option “would eliminate only 3.4 acres of wetlands.”

What was started at Greens Creek nearly twenty-five years ago is no good basis for interpreting laws today or in deciding what constitutes 21st century environmental protection. Equally well, what is appropriate at Kensington Mine, is no guide to what may or may not be technically appropriate at Pebble, so geographically, time-wise, and environmentally far away.

However, in the greater scheme of the politics of mine development in Alaska, it seems as though precedent will be a major line of argument and community relations. The argument would seem to be: Greens Creek filled in a swamp (now-days called a wetland) to create their dry-stack tailings pile; therefore this is the best way to deposit tailings at Kensington; and thus too at Pebble.

There is an alternative line of argument: in the bad old days, in their utter ignorance of the value of wetlands, they filled in a wetland with dry-stack tailings; down in Canada a little later in the bad old days, they put the Island Copper tailings into the ocean; now we should use neither lakes, nor wetlands, nor the ocean as a place to put tailings. If we support dry stack tailings, then maybe we can make Kensington too expensive; and set a precedent for stopping high dams in a seismic area like Pebble.

To me, not knowing much about Alaskan mine tailings disposal other than what I remember from my youth at Greens Creek, I make a controversial suggestion. And the basis of my suggestion is the only criterion I personally believe in, namely that in the long-long-term, any on-land waste disposal facility will geomorphically relocate to the ocean. Thus, at Kensington they should put the tailings into the ocean in the first place. This would be much better than burdening future generations with the agony of trying to stop geomorphological change. In short, if it is going to erode down the river to the sea any way, why not put it in the sea now? That will be a lot cheaper in the long-run than trying to stop erosion and the impact of earthquakes.

As for Pebble, I cannot see how they will ever be able to justify a perpetual high-dam for wet tailings in a seismic zone. One day it will shake, and one day it will break, and one day all the sloppy tailings will migrate down to the sea. And if the earthquakes don’t get it, time, erosion, and the logic of geomorpholgy will get it to the sea.

I do not know the geomorphology of Pebble, but I suspect they have only one option: find a site that is a geomorphically closed basin and fill it with dry-stack tailings. Prefarably fill in an old caldera if there is one nearby.

With these ideas, I tread where angels fear to go. But I am old and opinionated: I hope that what I write will save future generations from many dreary tailings impoundment physical and propaganda releases, pro and con.

Plus, I must defend my summer home, Canada. For here they put mine tailings into lakes and the ocean all the time; they consider that environmentally sound stewardship. Just last week I sat in on a session discussing alternative tailings disposal options for a new mine. The consensus was: put it in the lake–better that than sitting high and dry/wet in the tundra landscape.

Point is that there are no absolutes; just relative positions warped and twisted by perceived personal & corporate interests. Or local politics. But in the long run nature will level it all—that is an absolute.

Without diminishing the importance of how Pebble will affect people who live, recreate, and eat off the surrounding region, I propose that there are but two questions that need be answered before opening the mine. They are both perfect examples of the issue of post-mining regional environmental sustainability. These are the questions, which I submit are relatively easy to answer:

1) Are the waste rock and/or tailings acid drainage generating, and if they are how will the mining company avoid water treatment in perpetuity?

2) Can the mining company ensure geomorphic stability of the waste rock piles and the tailings impoundment in the absence of perpetual maintenance?

A cascade of subsidary questions tumble from these two simple questions. I leave it to others to pose and answer the subsidary questions. All I know is that until I am assured there will be no need for perpetual water treatment or perpertual geomorphic maintenance, I am not buying shares. I know that if the mine gets going, I and my grandkids could live well for genertions off the dividends of $300 billion worth of gold. But somehow I suspect that in the absence of the answers I seek, it is unlikely that the mine will open, or that if it does that I would be doing the long-term moral thing.

Please comment, for I cannot believe the issue is as simple as the answer to two questions. Although the funny thing is that these are the same two questions we asked and answered in 1984 at the Cannon Mine above Wentachee, Washington.

Everything and nothing changes. Tristan and Isolde will still be there to inspire us to love; Rigoletto to remind us of the duty & tragedy of family; and Hamlet to hold a mirror to our souls.