Tradeoffs in mining in Alaska?

Global Warming Challenges

Global warming and climate change adds another layer of challenge to producers and shippers alike. With the life of ice roads shortened due to warming, costs rise as equipment must be flown in as melted permafrost makes it harder to operate even broad-tracked vehicles. With few power grids to remote mines, companies must provide their own generated power, build roads to connect to ports, and, in some instances, build a port specific to the mineral being exported.

As warming from the Central Arctic Ocean regions is forcing large chunks of permanent ice into shipping channels causing shippers to rethink how they navigate the highly unchartered waters. With large plugs of ice blocking vessels, it could become worse as calved icebergs drift into shipping lanes, able to tear holes into the sides of the bulk or bulk break vessels.

Such threats are compounded by a dearth of infrastructure along the Alaskan coast. The new roads or rail into the Alaskan interior, compounded by a lack of a deep–water port, such constraints magnify challenging logistics problems, certainly in promising areas for new explorations without spill response, search and rescue and fully equipped safe harbors.

Along with the challenges caused by ice and cold, a rethinking of cost-benefit priorities in terms of environmental impacts is redefining the terrain regarding a series of existing and projects in planning. Communities in the footprint of operations, environmental organizations and some Alaskan Native groups are asking the state, corporate, community and non-governmental entities to consider the trade-offs between the mining bedrock of the Alaskan economy and the environmental impacts of the industry, particularly to the subsistence economies depended upon by many rural Alaskans who hunt, fish, gather and whale for their food security.

The Balance

Decisions are, indeed, complex on this subject. Mining is a key element in the Alaskan economy. In many instances mining provides the only cash income for Alaskans. Many of the State’s major municipalities such as Anchorage, Fairbanks and Nome owe their founding to mining.

Beyond jobs, mining supports both local and the state economy. In 2018, Alaska’s six largest operating mines provided some 9,200 direct and indirect jobs, $715 million in payrolls for some 60 communities, many in rural Alaska where paying jobs are scarce.

Alaska Resource Development Council estimates that the mining industry spent $135 million on exploration in 2018 with an export value of $1.8 billion primarily to China, Japan and India. The industry also accounted for $34 million to local governments, $149 million to state government revenues and $358 million in payments to Alaska Native Corporations.

The flipside, and arguably even raises issues that shippers might engage, is the growing concern being expressed by community leaders and environmental advocates that mining causes substantial harm to marine and terrestrial ecosystems as well as creating food security problems for rural Alaskans. The boxes that accompany this article, reflect on the ecosystem issues in three distinct situations: the lead and zinc Red Dog Mine in northern Alaska, the controversial Pebble Mine, projected to be one of the largest copper, gold and molybdenum mines on the planet, to be located in the headwaters of one of the world’s most productive sockeye salmon fisheries and a graphite-mine-in-planning some forty miles north of Nome, projected as one that could potentially make the U.S. a dominant force in high grade graphite production, and in national security terms, one that would help the U.S. replace China as its sole source for all important graphite to the digital world.

The risks-benefits equation, including a balance of a viable environment in terms of food security and the construction of a “21st century” cash economy is a vital debate, and, indeed, a debate worth having. How it unfolds has everything to do with the future of Alaska, Alaskans, shippers and global commerce – and a conversation being engaged about such tradeoffs worldwide.