This editorial first appeared in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:
A few hundred people gathered Nov. 29 in Fairbanks to talk about how Alaska can start producing some of the lesser-known but essential minerals used in many high-tech products.
The Alaska Strategic and Critical Minerals Summit, at the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge, appears to have drawn a full house for the second year in a row. That’s encouraging. If Alaskans see some action after all the promotion, it will be more than encouraging — it will be rewarding.
Commissioner of Natural Resources Dan Sullivan told us Thursday that the state’s initiative, kicked off at last year’s conference, is producing useful information already. State geologists have been assessing “rare earth” minerals across the state, including good prospects in the Interior.
Most of the work is being done by Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys employees in Fairbanks. The Legislature provided $3 million across several years to boost the effort.
The information they develop will be public, and mining companies can use it to conduct initial evaluations of what might be economic to develop.
Sullivan said he believes there is “a lot of activity on the horizon” in the Interior.
Mining license taxes provide some revenue for state government but nothing on the scale of oil and gas royalties and taxes. The real value of mineral development is in economic activity and jobs, Sullivan said. The average yearly compensation for an employee at a large mine in Alaska is about $100,000, he noted.
Mines also pay millions of dollars in property taxes to municipalities or make voluntary impact payments to nearby communities.
Sullivan said his figures indicate about a third of U.S. exploration investment dollars were spent in Alaska last year. Much of the money was spent on the enormous Pebble project in southwest Alaska, he acknowledged, but, nevertheless, more than 30 projects had exploration budgets of $1 million or more.
Alaska still has just a few large producing mines. If the strategic minerals initiative can bring on a few more, it will be well worth the state initiative’s expense.
Comments (3)
Add commentThe true cost of mining to
The true cost of mining to our state is enormous. Human costs, environmental costs, and societal costs are all tied to mining. Our state & the public, gets pennies on the dollar for the land and minerals mined in our state. While a few CEOs of mostly foreign owned mining companies earn multi-million dollar salaries each year off of our minerals and for degrading our land. Not only this but future generations of Alaskans are left with the ongoing costs of clean-up and treatment of the toxic mine tailing waste.
One of the things our legislative reps should be doing is asking the Commissioner of Natural Resources Dan Sullivan and Governor Sean Parnell to explain why they removed - for the needs of future generations - from the Dept. of Natural Resources mission statement.
Our Reps. and Governor are falling all over each other to create wealth for the few, to give away land and resources that belong to all Alaskans to foreign owned mining corporations.
What are YOU going to do about it?
Oil, gas, minerals--yet what we need for economic sustainability
in Southeast is healthy watershed, sustainable wild fish stocks, and mid-size Alaska-class ferries.
Oil, gas, minerals--yet what we need for economic sustainability
in Southeast are healthy watersheds, sustainable wild fish stocks, and mid-size Alaska-class ferries.