Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, recently, visited the Alaska Native village of Brevig Mission on the Seward Peninsula to, in part, to talk about the Villages concerns regrading the proposed Graphite One mine located at the base of the Kigluak Mountain range 15 miles east of the village.
Murkowski along with the Trump administration, is an ardent supporter of developing, so-called, “critical minerals” including graphite designated in 2018 as essential to the U.S. economy and national security.
At the same time, subsistence resources upon which Alaska Natives, and who greatly assisted Murkowski’s re-election during her write-in campaign in 2010 when tea party candidate Joe Miller threatened to end her political career, be besting her in the Republican primary and, are often, severely impacted by mining and other development projects the senator is proposing.
So, during a packed community meeting at Brevig Mission, she explained that “While you need the resource, you have to avoid environmental degradation,” Graphite is a highly desired commodity that the world is interested in.
As a result, stating that “You are the ones who have the most knowledge on the ground right now,” Murkowski, encourged residents of both Brevig Mission and nearby Teller to continue to speak out about their concerns known as the project moves forward.
She offered similar remarks later in the day while addressing the residents of Teller, another Native village that lies 7 miles down the coast and is closer to the proposed mine site, where locals also brought up the project.
While Murkowski is traditionally a powerful advocate for development of oil and gas and timber, there are indications that she is weakening her stance on mining. Regarding the controversial Pebble mine for example, due to potentially significant impacts on the sockeye salmon population in nearby Bristol Bay, Murkowski has highlighted the need for a thorough assessment of environmental impacts of the Mine,
While she maintains that Graphite One is different because it would have a lot smaller footprint, Murkowski says “You can’t treat the people that live there as just people that get in the way of your project,” Murkowski said. “This is their land. And you have to gain that permission and that social license to operate. So Graphite One is going to have some work to do.”