My name is William Brent. I came to Alaska in 1973. I was fortunate enough to work on the Dalton Highway which led to the construction of the pipeline, and did pipeline construction for 22 years. During the pipeline construction, I met a couple from Gustavus who invited me down to visit. I fell in love with Southeast Alaska and purchased part of an old homestead at the mouth of Hawk Inlet. My family and I lived there and subsisted off fish, game, and gardening even before Admiralty Island became a monument.
In 1980, I spoke with Congressman Mo Udall in Hawk Inlet at the Peter Pan Seafood Cannery. He was there deliberating whether or not to designate Admiralty Island as a national monument. I expressed to him my dissatisfaction with so much of Alaska being tied up in wilderness, parks, and monuments. These types of designations restricted my mining in Chicken, Alaska, sheep hunting out of McCarthy, and turned all of the non-private property on Admiralty into monument wilderness with all of its restrictions.
It took me years of living in the Admiralty Monument wilderness to realize its value to the planet and everyone on it. Over time I have come to appreciate the foresight of Congressman Udall and the elders of Angoon to protect Admiralty Island for all Americans for the long term.
While working with Enquip in the early 80’s to install the Bentonite Ditch, an underground ditch which holds back the tailing pile for Greens Creek Mine from leeching into Hawk Inlet, I didn’t realize the magnitude of the weight it would have on it today.
After seeing the disappearance of the pink neck clams in and around the Hawk Inlet area, and knowing the Bentonite Ditch is not resting on bedrock, I wonder what is actually going into Hawk Inlet. How far do airborne contaminants blown off the tailing pile reach? Why is the state allowing fugitive dust from the Greens Creek tailings to blow the pollutants in every direction? Who and what is affected by these pollutants?
I do not know if changes seen and unseen are because of the mining activity, but neither do I know if the shrimp, crabs, fish, and other seafood I still catch are safe to eat.
I urge the U.S. Forest Service to consider the impact to our renewable fisheries, natural resources, and monument wilderness values before allowing Greens Creek to expand their tailing dump.
Bill Brent
Juneau
Comments (7)
Add commentResponsibilty
Great article and I agree with everything Mr. Brent has said. I too have spent a lot of time in that area and the tailing pile is in fact an eyesore. The Halibut aren't as big and who knows where the clams went. I’m not pretending to be a biologist but it's hard to ignore those observations.
A good article that KTOO did talked about other options they had with the expansion. The mine manager Scott Hartman basically said that it he would rather cover up Tributary Creek which is a habitat for several types of fish than have to construct a pipeline and drive an extra 6 miles roundtrip.
http://www.ktoo.org/2012/05/30/comments-due-on-greens-creek-mine-tailing...
Someone should tell Mr. Hartman that doing the right thing isn't always easy. I bet he hasn't lived or subsisted in that area.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for mining as long as it is done responsibly. There are alternatives to the expansion project, one of which doesn’t involve using more protected land.
Where's CBJ?
Collect property taxes, then wash your hands from any responsibility? CBJ's silence on the 10 million tons of toxic waste requiring treatment forever on land within CBJ does not bode well for its ability to regulate any AJ Mine development.
Counting Crows
They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot...
MadDog
I wholly agree MadDog, but it was Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell circa 1970. Credit where credit is due.
What are we going to do about it?
yes: Joni Mitchell
wrote and sang that song!
It will be done correctly
Please have confidence that between the highly professional environmental staff at Greens Creek and the capable folks at the USFS, it will be done correctly. The technology available today far surpasses what existed even twenty years ago. Yes it can be done, and it can be done without harm to the ecosystem.
Helter...
How can you know that? Any technology developed 20 years ago obviously has no track record of success over the centuries that an engineered cover would have to contain the toxic tailings at Greens Creek. Every era touts the "new technology". How is that track record of success working out for mine dumps?
What does work are productive salmon streams, but here the trade off is to kill a salmon stream for a couple of decades of profit to an Idaho corporation and create a pile of toxins that has to be managed for centuries. If I was a little younger I would place a bet that the costs for management and clean up becomes paid for by the public by the year 2100.