Trust in Goldbelt

Are you one of the people who has enjoyed Echo Cove and Berners Bay over the last several years? How did you get there? Did you drive to the end of the road and walk through the lush rain forest? If so, then you were enjoying the hospitality of the landowner, Goldbelt. Likewise when your children or family go to Echo Ranch, you are enjoying the access through Goldbelt's land. You may have paddled your kayak around to Berners Bay. If you used the boat ramp, you were enjoying the use of land that Goldbelt exchanged to the city of Juneau. If you put ashore along Berners Bay, you were enjoying the use of either Forest Service land or Goldbelt land. Most likely Forest Service, because in 1995 Goldbelt, at its own expense, completed a land exchange conveying 1,400 acres of Berners Bay shoreline to the Forest Service for much desired public use.

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Goldbelt has been very generous with its land at Berners Bay and would now like to use what remains of their Echo Cove lands to develop Cascade Point to support the Kensington gold mine. Goldbelt would like to use its land to help their shareholders benefit financially and through employment. Once they are successful, other people throughout Southeast Alaska will benefit as well.

Why would we stop them from doing so? Why would we assume that the people who have the most intimate tie to the land would allow it to come to harm? When did we become so arrogant that we assumed we knew what's best for Goldbelt shareholders? Most importantly, why would we repay the graciousness of this landowner, who has allowed us to use their land freely and has arranged for much of it to be used by the public, by trying to impose greater restrictions on them than on any other land holder in Juneau? It's really time to extend the same trust to Goldbelt that they did to us by supporting the Goldbelt Cascade Point project.

Karen Doxey

Juneau