Local NewsHere is another AJC article, time frame "end of 2007" should provide clarity on dev team.............
Web posted Sunday, July 22, 2007
Pebble drills 24/7 as debate continues
By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce
Pebble mine's Rig 6 sits among the sweeping tundra near Iliamna. The rig averages 250 feet of core samples a day as mine officials work to better determine the ore's potential. Opponents are still concerned about water quality, however. Photo/Margaret Bauman/AJOC
ILIAMNA — In the sweeping tundra west of Lake Clark National Park and Reserve, blanketed with lichen and tiny wildflowers, an isolated crew works round the clock to drill for samples to identify rich vanes of copper, gold and molybdenum hidden beneath the surface.
Northern Dynasty Mines Inc., a mining firm from Vancouver, British Columbia, has yet to determine the full value of this exploration site, located 18 miles north of Iliamna and 200 miles southwest of Anchorage.
Eventually, in partnership with major mining companies, Northern Dynasty hopes to mine an area about 15 square miles in a spot located at the headwaters of streams that flow into Bristol Bay, home of the richest sockeye salmon fishery in the world.
Acting site manager Bob Cluff of Victoria, British Columbia, said it costs about $200 a foot to drill the core samples, which are logged in and given a quick examination by scientists in a core shack in Iliamna before being shipped out for further analysis. Crews drill 20 feet down, pull up a core sample and continue drilling for the next one, averaging 250 feet a day on Rig 6, he said.
Rig 6 is one of the newest and largest rigs at Pebble East. It had drilled about 2,500 feet in the last 10 days, Cluff said, during a site tour July 12. Operating the drill rig requires 16 gallons of water a minute. The water is secured from nearby tundra ponds, and then filtered back into the ground after use, he said.
Employees on the rig include brothers Tony and Mike Janti, college students from Newhalen.
Opponents worry about water
As the Janti brothers pulled core sample after core sample from the site, hundreds of fishing vessels floating hundreds of miles downstream in the waters of Bristol Bay continued their annual harvest of wild Alaska sockeye salmon. In sports lodges scattered over the Bristol Bay watershed area, dozens of clients angled for trophy fish, while villagers harvested fish to feed their families.
For thousands of years, the 40,000-square-mile Bristol Bay watershed has provided sustenance for the people and the wildlife.
It is the home ground for the 120,000-plus Mulchatna caribou herd, plus numerous moose, bear and other wildlife.
But can the people and the wildlife that calls this 40,000-square-mile area home coexist with the 15-square-mile area that would encompass the Pebble Mine? It is a thorny issue.
Opponents to the mine are primarily concerned about the water: that chemicals used in the operations could leech into the rivers and streams, running downstream into the Bristol Bay and devastating the fisheries.
They worry the mine operators will pull excessive amounts of water from the bay's feeder streams, and they fret over the fact that the mine wants to build a huge tailings facility in a lake. They fear that a major earthquake could jostle those tailings into the streams.
On the evening of July 12, an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter scale was centered 20 miles west-southwest of the mine site. State seismologist Robert Hansen said in the past 10 years there have been 31 seismic events located within 50 kilometers of that quake. The largest of them, until July 12, had a magnitude of 3.0, he said.
“We can have fairly large earthquakes anywhere in the state,” Hansen said. “This is earthquake country. The Denali fault proved that to us.” Before the 7.9 magnitude Denali fault earthquake in 2002, there was very little seismic activity on that fault, he said.
Mining study core of concern
Proponents of the Pebble project argue that they are ready and willing to meet all government regulations to build the project, regulations that aim to ensure the security of the environment. If the company doesn't abide by the regulations, it won't be able to build the mine, says Sean McGee, a spokesman for Northern Dynasty.
While seismologists can't predict earthquakes, they note there are international building codes, based on the probability of earthquakes, based on historic information.
The regulations the mine must meet includes one that calls for no net loss of fisheries, an issue that troubles Carol Ann Woodie, a scientific consultant for Trout Unlimited and the Renewable Resources Coalition. Woodie, who was employed for years with the U.S. Geological Survey, has a doctorate in fisheries science from the University of Washington.
McGee said that Northern Dynasty has a large environmental team working on a design with a goal of no net loss to any fishery.
“Our approach is to avoid impact to fish, and if not, to mitigate,” he said. “Fisheries are tremendously important.”
If fish die because of the mine's operations, for example, the company could pay to restock the waters.
But Woodie contends that fisheries biologists have tried to introduce self-sustaining runs of anadromous sockeye salmon, but have rarely been successful. Many salmon species are anadromous, meaning that they live mostly in the sea, but breed in fresh water.
Other opponents point to historic water-quality issues found in hardrock mines in the Lower 48, and the lack of expertise available in the local agencies that are tasked to oversee such projects.
According to state of Alaska mining officials, the Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska, which was not included in this study, was the only hardrock mine in Alaska in recent years to incur a water quality issue.
A research study on the accuracy of water quality predictions at hardrock mines, conducted by consulting mining engineer Jim Kuipers and internationally recognized geochemist Ann Maest, points to the flaws in the regulation of mining ventures that have resulted in environmental disasters. The research was funded in part by Earthworks, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the environment from mining impacts.
Earthworks released the study several months ago. In their research, Kuipers and Maest found that the predicted water quality impacts of mines tend not to match reality. They found numerous examples of failure by government regulators, industry and consultants to recognize and correct deficient procedures and methods for predicting contamination of water at hardrock mines. Some of the sites included in the study were established before government regulations focused on problems of acid rock drainage and metals leaching.
McGee said his design teams are holding to strict adherence to all environmental regulations to protect the waters.
Woodie also points to a lack of stream flow information for the waters of Southwest Alaska. Her concerns include the huge amounts of sulfite rock and the high water table of the area where the mine would be built.
“Even if the amount of sulfite in the rock is low, the amount of rock being extracted, pulverized and processed is sufficient to cause problems, especially in a groundwater-fed area, where there is potential for groundwater and surface water contamination,” Woodie said.
Mine company builds data
Northern Dynasty's Sean McGee doesn't agree with Woodie's assessments. In an interview at the mine site, McGee reiterated that any water that leaves the project during and after the mine operations “has to meet very conservative aquatic life standards set by the state, and water that meets those standards will not harm fish.”
McGee said the mine will have to abide by monitoring standards and any problems would have to be remediated immediately.
Regarding sulfite content of the mineralized rock area, McGee contends that 95 percent of the ore is non-reactive and 5 percent is potentially reactive if it is not stored underwater. “If it's stored under water, it will not react,” he said.
McGee noted that when Northern Dynasty applies for mining permits, all its environmental studies will be released to the state and the public. McGee said it would probably be no earlier than 2009 before that happens. Raw data from the studies will not be released in the meantime, because previously released information had been taken out of context by opponents of the operation.
“We're not going to release anything that is raw data,” he said. “We will only release completed consultant reports. What we have right now is a science project. We don't know what we'll do, (but) it is likely a consortium will be formed by the end of 2007,” and that will help make those determinations.
Bruce Jenkins, Northern Dynasty's chief operating officer, confirmed in a separate interview held earlier in July that Northern Dynasty has signed confidentiality agreements with more than a dozen mining companies that are interested in becoming partners in the mine. Jenkins would not identify the companies.
Rio Tinto LLC, one of the world's largest mining companies, currently is the only partner, holding 19.8 percent ownership in the project.
Whomever the partners may be, “we fully expect to remain involved as a partner,” McGee said. “Northern Dynasty will very likely remain part of the consortium.”
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
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