Redfern barge plan for Taku River under review
Fishermen and others still concerned about the effects of vehicles
State permitters this month are reviewing Redfern Resources Ltd.'s revised plan to haul mine supplies and ore on the Taku River year round.
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This is the Vancouver company's second application. The state terminated the first one this summer after the company changed the tow vehicles it planned to use to haul an air-cushion barge across Taku ice.
The first plan generated widespread concern among sport and commercial fishermen and other users of the salmon-rich river. More than 250 people attended the last public meeting in February.
Tim Davies of Redfern said the new plan was designed to address those concerns.
"Everything, from the equipment to the monitoring plan, was designed to avoid (impact) or accommodate concerns," he said.
Public comments must be submitted from scratch. The public can learn about the project Thursday at Centennial Hall.
The permits
Redfern needs two permits from the state, for travel over land and through fish habitat. The project also goes through an Alaska coastal zone consistency review.
The last permit process was plagued by delays. This time, Redfern worked in a "prereview" process with state permitters to submit a more complete application.
That's not a prejudging of its merits, said permitters.
"Agency representatives are very careful to make sure that there's no kind of prereview approvals going on," said Tom Crafford, the large mine permitting coordinator at the Department of Natural Resources.
Redfern is owned by Vancouver-based Redcorp Ventures Ltd.
Barging on the Taku
A marine barge will haul materials between the mine's Juneau office at Alaska Marine Lines and the mouth of the Taku.
There, the barge's load will be transferred to an air cushion barge, also called a hoverbarge.
The barge can't power itself. It will be shuttled by four "amphibious tractors" - either tracked or with big, soft, floating Rolligon-like tires, two in front and two behind - to the barge landing site on the Tulsequah River.
Sixteen miles of the 28-mile route are in Alaska.
From late May to October, the hoverbarge will be moved with a shallow draft tug boat.
The trickiest part is at Canyon Island. On the west is a deeper but narrow channel. On the east is a shallow, braided area with a shifting gravel bar.
In the new summer plan, the tug will hand off the barge at Canyon Island to the amphibious vehicles, which will haul it around the east side. Meanwhile the tug takes the deeper channel and reconnects with the barge at the other end.
In the winter, the hoverbarge will be pushed and pulled over the frozen river floodplain by the four amphibious tractors over the ice of the Taku. Snowmachines or another tracked vehicle may groom the snow and provide crew changes and emergency support.
The Taku's habitat for salmon, hooligan and other species is arguably most vulnerable in the shoulder seasons of fall and spring, when the ice that protects the river is forming or thawing.
Redfern's Davies said the new plan is more definite about when the company will cease operations altogether for the shoulder seasons.
Winter operations will stop, for example, when open leads are too many or too wide for the amphibious vehicles - which have very limited propulsion in water - and won't restart until the river has a minimum flow.
"Most people would agree that's a good thing," Crafford said. "Those are the really difficult times of the year to operate, and the times of the year which you would most likely be disturbing the land the greatest. The new proposal in that sense is, I think, good news."
"It does create a different set of issues," he said, including the "additional complexity" of handing off the air cushion barge around Canyon Island.
Noise and wake
Two of the biggest concerns from Taku users this year were the noise and the wake the barge will produce.
Redfern's plan says the vehicles' engines will be muffled and enclosed, and says they won't be louder than 70 decibels at 100 feet. (Seventy decibels is perhaps twice as loud as ordinary conversation.)
They'll also have minimal wake, according to the company.
State permitters will require the system to be tested in Juneau to verify that's all true before allowing the vehicles on the Taku.
Environmental monitoring
The plan calls for environmental monitoring that will be refined in the first few years "to the extent practical."
Redfern is required by Canadian permitters as well as Alaskans to monitor bank erosion, the turbidity of fish habitat and whether juvenile salmon are being stranded. The permitters have been coordinating their efforts, Crafford said.
The company will also conduct "annual follow-up with property owners, commercial tourism operators, commercial fishers and other users of the river ... to ensure concerns regarding barging operations can be addressed in a timely manner," according to the plan.
Questioning the plan
Concerns remain among Taku users.
Rivers Without Borders field coordinator Chris Zimmer said the company has shown the last two summers, with conventional barging, that it's not prepared to deal with the difficult Taku. Groundings are not uncommon for much smaller vehicles on this braided, shallow, dynamic river, he said.
The winter, he said, is likely to be even tougher. And these vehicles have never been used in concert.
"Redfern simply hasn't proven they can operate this barge safely in the Taku, given the novelty of the proposal and the dynamic Taku," Zimmer said. "It's quite a fleet of different vehicles out there, and it kind of strikes me as a Keystone Cops routine."
Zimmer hired scientists to examine Redfern's previous plan for shortcomings, and is doing so for this one as well.
Could Redfern come up with a Taku plan that would satisfy Zimmer?
"There may be, but we sure as hell haven't seen it yet," he said.
Karl Vandor of the Taku River Cabin Owners Association said his group's main discussions over the last year have been the "headache" of the Tulsequah Chief plans. He doesn't think the barge will be controllable in the infamous high Taku winds.
"We think it's a harebrained scheme. It's just basically going to chew up the river."
"I don't want anybody to think that we're anti-mine," he added.
Redfern's Tim Davies vowed to address Taku users' concerns.
"When a project has the potential to impact people's lifestyles, they have every right to raise concerns," Davies said. "If people bring concerns or information to us, we will look at it seriously."
The public process
Zimmer and others are concerned that the permit process is shorter this time around: 30 days instead of 50.
"We've got the agencies doing a bare-minimum review here, and I think the Taku - the most important salmon river in Southeast - deserves more," Zimmer said.
State permitter Crafford said the original 50-day review was "a mistake."
He also noted that state permitters can stop the clock to ask for more information, and were already preparing to do so.
Thursday's public meeting is scheduled a week after the state announced its formal review had begun. That has garnered grumbles among fishermen and others who haven't had time to read the operations plan yet.
But Crafford said it was necessary, because permitters want to hear the public's concerns before they ask the company for more information - and that deadline, in the shorter schedule, is next Tuesday.
"It would look a bit like a sham if it's after the fact, and you can't ask any questions or require anything more that might come out of that meeting," Crafford said.
• Contact reporter Kate Golden at kate.golden@juneauempire.com.