Facts
A quick overview of the issues regarding the Kensington Gold Mine:
Berners Bay, Lower Slate Lake and Surrounding Area
Berners Bay is surrounded by snow-capped alpine peaks, an old-growth Sitka spruce and hemlock forest, cottonwood floodplains, freshwater marshes, and saltwater estuaries.
The bay supports commercial and sport coho and sockeye salmon fisheries, and also provides commercial catches of shrimp and king, tanner, and Dungeness crab. Berners Bay contains the last healthy spawning population of herring in the greater Lynn Canal region, while the spring eulachon ("hooligan," or candlefish) run forms the base of a productive food chain: supporting eagles, gulls, seals, sea lions, and humpback whales. Brown and black bears, wolves, wolverines, deer, moose, and mountain goats roam the land surrounding the bay.
Opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, kayaking, air boating, and camping abound, and commercial tourism in Berners Bay has increased in recent years.
Berners Bay is also culturally significant to the Auk Kwaan, the original settlers of Juneau. Several ancient village sites are located around the bay. According to tribal leader Rosa Miler, "where there are villages, there are also burial sites." The Auk Kwaan consider Lions Head Mountain sacred because it contains the spirits of their shamans.
Lower Slate Lake is situated on a terrace at an elevation of 650 feet in the Tongass National Forest. It is surrounded by forest and important wetlands, and it supports fish populations, including about a thousand Dolly Varden char. Slate Creek flows from the lake about 2 miles into Berners Bay. The creek contains a variety of fish, including coho, pink and chum salmon, Dolly Varden char, and cutthroat trout.
The Kensington Mine
Coeur Alaska, Inc., a subsidiary of Idaho-based Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation, has begun construction of an underground gold mine that would process 2,000 tons of ore every day. During operations, Coeur plans to discharge 210,000 gallons per day of mine tailings into Lower Slate Lake. The tailings will be a slurry of industrial waste consisting of about half liquid and half solids, contain heavy metals, and be extremely alkaline, approximately equal to that of ammonia. The tailings discharges will kill all fish in the lake and, over time, deposit 4.5 million tons of solid waste in the lake.
The current plan for the Kensington mine includes:
- Construction of two industrial port facilities in Berners Bay, one at Slate Creek Cove, and the other at Cascade Point;
- Daily ferry and barge trips through Berners Bay to transport employees, equipment, fuel, and ore concentrate;
- Chemically processed mine waste disposal in Lower Slate Lake;
- A dam, 90 feet high by 500 feet long, to expand Lower Slate Lake to hold all the mine waste. This dam will have to remain intact and in good repair forever to hold the tailings in the lake and prevent them from spilling down Slate Creek into Berners Bay; and
- A two-mile long access tunnel at the base of Lions Head Mountain from the mill to the Kensington claims.
The Clean Water Act controls pollution of lakes, streams, and estuaries caused by discharges from so-called "point sources" such as mining mills, pulp mills, oil refineries, chemical manufacturing plants and other installations. Under the Act, pollution discharges must meet standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to attain or maintain the water quality necessary to protect aquatic life and human uses.
The Army Corps of Engineers, however, authorized Coeur Alaska to discharge 210,000 gallons a day of chemically processed mine tailings, without complying with EPA's standards. The Corps is trying to get around those standards by claiming that the waste is "fill material" under the Act. If the permit remains as is, the Kensington Mine will be the first case of a mining operation that dumps tailings into a pristine lake, setting an alarming national precedent.
Current Status
On September 12, 2005, the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Sierra Club, and Lynn Canal Conservation filed suit to challenge the Army Corps' approval of the disposal permit. In November 2005, recognizing that there are problems with its permit decision, the Corps suspended the permit. The Corps is now re-evaluating the permit, and the case is on hold, pending the Corps' review.
