Mining and Water – Page 2 – Water Policy Consulting LLC

The Native Village of Elim’s Seward Peninsula Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen and Stream Flow Monitoring Plan

Alaska Native village communities located on the Seward Peninsula region (Villages) rely on healthy watersheds, fish and wildlife for their subsistence needs. At the same time rising temperatures and low snow pack in the region are reeking havoc on the delivery of water when it is most needed. For example, air temperatures in the region, which are rising twice as fast as other places in the country, broke records during the month of July 2019.

These temperature increases are impacting the subsistence livelihoods of the Villages through decreased dissolved oxygen combined with other weather related changes, including low river flows, altered ice flows, and stream bank erosion. In addition, because rivers and streams located within the Western Alaska region are largely fed by snow melt, rising temperatures in the region means rain (instead of snow) is becoming more prominent in the fall and winter. This is resulting in increased seasonal flood events which threaten community infrastructure and scour stream beds used by fish and wildlife.

These sudden changes are impacting fresh water ecosystems during the summer months as well. In 2019 about 22 rivers and streams throughout Alaska reported record water temperatures, as compared to just 7 in 2018. As a result, in June and July 2019, thousands of salmon died as they migrated to spawning grounds in Western Alaska, because the water temperatures exceeded lethal limits for the fish. For example, the Tubulik near Elim and Koyuk had record temperatures as high as 16 degrees centigrad at the Vulcan Creek gage site, 30 miles from the mouth.

These climate related stressors are further exacerbated by non-climate stressors including mining and related development on fish and wildlife populations. Specifically, during 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will be opening over 46 million acres in 1-3 million acres increments, to mining and other development throughout Alaska. As part of this process, the agency plans to open about 3 million acres covered by the Kobuk-Seward Resource Management Plan (Plan) of BLM Alaska land mineral entry and remove community-supported Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. The Plan, however, does not address the impacts of increasing water temperatures in watersheds affected by land releases and therefore, the combined impacts of climate change and mining development on subsistence resources.

The Native Village of Elim is applying for funding for it’s Tubutulik River Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Stream Flow Monitoring Plan Project is working to develop a climate change risk assessment for the Tubutulik River Watershed (Watershed) that will include: 1) Application of drought and temperature forecasting for the Seward Penninsula to predict instream flows and temperature; 2) Protocols for collection of instream flow, temperature and dissolved oxygen data during the summer season when temperatures are at their highest; 3) Identify lands within the Watershed that include critical fish habitat and potential locateable minerals that have been opened for mining under the Kobuk-Seward Peninsula Resource Management Plan (RMP); 4) Identify a process for applying the modeling and data collected to assist policy makers and land managers to mitigate land uses that potentially exacerbate climate related impacts in the Watershed and 5) Apply for instream flow water rights under Alaska state law on stream reaches in sensitive watersheds that have been open to mining activity.

Once the Assessment is completed, it will serve as an ecosystem-wide vulnerability assessment for natural resource(s) that can be used by multiple tribes as a template for conducting their own modeling, data collection and outreach to federal and state agency land managers. There are multiple sensitive salmon streams and rivers within the RMP planning area that other tribes rely on for subsistence practices that will be impacted by the opening of lands to mining under the RMP. The Assessment will, therefore, specifically benefit the other Village communities located on the Seward Peninsula by assisting in the prediction of instream flows and temperature impacts to salmon and other fisheries, and measures that will result in quantifiable, locally based watershed protection from the potential impacts of climate change and land development.

Endangered Species Protection Sought for Lake Iliamna’s Freshwater Seals

A recent study conducted by scientists from the University of Washington, University of Utah, and University of Alaska Anchorage, concludes that a population of seals found in Lake Iliamna, Alaska’s largest lake, form a distinct, freshwater population. An analysis of the seals’ teeth indicates that the approximately 400 animals depend exclusively on freshwater fish found in the lake, rather than saltwater fish species consumed by other, marine-based, harbor seals. This finding brings the number of known freshwater seal populations around the globe to five.

This distinction has led the Center for Biological Diversity to petition the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to protect the Iliamna population under the Endangered Species Act. Threats to the population, according to the petition, include the proposed Pebble Mine, which would create the largest open-pit copper, gold and molybdenum mine in the state, along with associated infrastructure, including a ferry system across Lake Iliamna, and massive freshwater withdrawals. The proposed mine is located in southwestern Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs.

To learn more, visit:

Environmentalists seek Endangered Species Act listing for rare Alaska freshwater seals

Murkowski Meets with Villages on Graphite One Mine

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.”

Removal of Protections of Salmon Habitat in Bristol Bay Surrounded by Controversy

Stating that by withdrawing safeguards for Bristol Bay in order to pave the way for development of the Pebble Mine, “the [Environmental Protection Agency] has handicapped its own scientists’ ability to protect a place” that the agency itself, has described, as having “unparalleled ecological value, boasting salmon diversity and productivity unrivaled anywhere in North America,” several groups representing Bristol Bay tribes and fishermen filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Anchorage in an effort to force the agency to restore the protections.

The Plaintiffs, including the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Bristol Bay Native Association – a consortium of 31 tribes, the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association and Bristol Bay Reserve Association, two groups representing fishermen, and the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit promoting economic growth, have asked the federal district court in Anchorage to decide that the revocation of the 2014 determination made under the Clean Water Act, was arbitrary and capricious. The 40-page complaint states that, in withdrawing the 2014 proposed determination, EPA “failed to consider the substantive findings it made in support” of the determination that the Mine could cause significant harm to the environment.

According to Ralph Andersen who is the chief executive of BBNA, regarding the lawsuit, the Trump “administration not only broke the law, it made clear that local people have no voice in the management of our rivers, our streams and wetlands,… But the people of Bristol Bay are not pushovers.”

Shortly after the lawsuite was filed, Earthworks, a Washington-based advocacy group, filed a complaint with the New Jersey Bureau of the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate related to Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. – the Pebble Mine parent company possible insider trading. According to the complaint there was flurry of stock trades and communication in the days prior to the decision to revoke EPA’s section 401© certification that substantially improved the prospects for the Mine as indicated by price of the company’s stocks raising dramatically after the EPA’s decision was publicly announced last summer. A spokesman for Northern Dynasty called the allegations “entirely false and without merit” and denied any wrongdoing by the company.