I write this issue of the Executive Director Update with very mixed emotions. This will be the 266th such update that I have written over the past 22 years as your Executive Director and it will be my last. These 22 years have been great! This association and this industry are composed of a great group of people and it has been a pleasure to represent you. In this Update I will address some of the good, bad and ugly that I have observed as Executive Director.

During the past 22 years the mining industry in Alaska has seen major changes, most of which have been good. The changes we have seen in state laws and regulations and attitudes have generally been good and have removed uncertainty and improved the business climate. However, the changes we have seen in federal regulations and agency actions at the national level have almost always been bad for the mining industry and bad for Alaska business in general.

When Marilyn and I moved to Alaska in 1986 there were only three “large” mines operating - Usibelli Coal Mine, Alaska Gold Company operating dredges #5 and #6 at Nome and Valdez Creek Mining Company operating the Denali Mine. Greens Creek, Red Dog, Quartz Hill, Kensington, A-J, Chuitna Coal, and Wishbone Hill were being evaluated. Nixon Fork was simply a dream of two diligent and tenacious claim owners, the late Margret Mesphelt and Ted Almasy. Fort Knox, Pogo, Donlin, and Pebble had not been discovered. I am not certain these four had even been the part of anyone’s dream at that time.

As I noted earlier, the changes at the state level have generally been good for the mineral industry. The March 2004 issue of Mining Engineering Magazine published an article that I wrote describing the many beneficial changes that had occurred in Alaska. The premise of the article was that regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat was governor, or whether the Republicans or Democrats controlled the House or the Senate, we had seen improvements in the regulatory and business climate. There were typically greater improvements when the Republicans were in charge but there were always improvements. The article can be found at www.alas kaminers.org under “links” and it goes into the details. However, I will mention some of the changes that I feel may have been the most significant.

Legislation passed in 1990 that required reclamation of all mined lands and established a bonding pool for use by placer mines and lode exploration. This law applied to all mining on state, federal and private lands and included a clear standard that had to be met and at the same time did not infringe on  the rights of private landowners. The bonding pool was crucial in that it guaranteed there would be reclamation, no matter what it cost, and provided the financial assurance at a reasonable cost to the miner.

State law was also changed to limit administrative closure of lands to mineral entry to not more than 640 acres. If an administrative closure greater than 640 acres is proposed. It must be ratified by an act of the Legislature during the next session. The exception is that larger closures are allowed for infrastructure needs. Prior to passage of this law, land plans typically closed hundreds of thousands of acres to mineral entry with little justification.

A change to the definition of state land, allowed for the orderly transfer of lands where federal claimants wanted their ground to become state land. Also a simple statue change stated that the Department of Natural Resources was the lead agency for minerals and mining which in part allowed establishment of the large mine permit team approach that has proven to be so important.

Another important change was made to the State Mining Law. This is the law that defines land tenure is established. These changes made to the State Mining Law changes have greatly reduced the cost for the Department of Natural Resources to administer the law and greatly reduced the time between filing a mining claim until that claim is shown on the land status plats. For the miner, the changes allowed staking of quarter section claims and the location of claim corners by use of hand-held global positioning units, thus reducing the cost of claim staking.

One last improvement to mention here was a combined effort of the State Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, USGS, BLM, USFS, and the mineral industry to ensure that geologic and mineral data was conserved and made available online to the public. Central to this was a modest appropriation by Senator Stevens over several years to the USGS. The initial immediate need was to ensure that the approximately 100 years of data and reports on Alaska maintained by the former U.S. Bureau of Mines did not get lost or destroyed following closure of the BoM. For more than five years the agencies and AMA met several times each year to identify, prioritize and agree on work assignments. In the end, all manner of geologic and minerals data was located, conserved, organized, scanned, and presented online at http://AkGeology.info for use by anyone with an internet connection. The objective was for this site to be the single portal to all data and mineral reports ever developed by the federal and state agencies, and where possible, industry. This single site contains links to land records, maps, publications, geologic data, libraries and archives, and provides for payments to be made online to maintain claims and leases. The maintenance of the site now resides with DGGS.

There were also several items that brought me great personal satisfaction. One was that I was able to help the late Alvin Kile overcome a rejection of his patent application for claims on Canyon Creek in the Fortymile. John Leshy, then DOI Solicitor, denied Kile’s application and I was able to help Kile with his appeal which resulted in him receiving patents for, as I recall, seven of the nine claims. 

It was also personally satisfying to first prevent the badly damaged Cape Yakataga River Bridge from being removed and to then see it be repaired/replaced. How could any agency, in this case a local office of BLM, even consider removal of infrastructure in remote Alaska like a 500 foot long bridge? In any case removal did not occur and today a sturdy one-way bridge capable of use by heavy logging trucks is in place!

There have also been some disappointments. One of the greatest disappointments has been to watch the mis-implementation of the Alaska National Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA). The first painful example was in regard to the 24 placer mining families that operated at Kantishna in 1985. After an environmental NGO “friendly” (mean-ing in conjunction with the agency - my personal opinion) lawsuit, a few of these miners and claim owners received a little compensation but by far most did not. By design of the National Park Service, many simply died and their heirs then allowed the claims to lapse. Those that did receive something got pennies on the dollar of the true value of what was their property rights that had been taken from them.

In 2000 AMA published a book titled d(2) Part 2 – Promises Broken which compiled the stories of some of the people that were involved in the ANILCA debate that sprung from Section d(2) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The clear conclusion is that there is no such thing as “valid existing rights”. Today the so-called “inventoried roadless” issue in the Tongass and John Sturgeon’s lawsuit against the NPS over their police actions on the Yukon, Charlie and Nation rivers are the result of more ANILCA broken promises by federal agencies. Also. in all cases we have had great relations with our Alaska Congregational Delegation and their hard working staff.

Lest you get the wrong impression I need to comment on the people in the state and federal agencies. With only a few exceptions the problems are seldom with local agency staff. There are a lot of great people in both the state and federal agencies and I have found by far most to be very professional, hardworking and trying to do the best job they can. Most of the problems with the federal agencies are due to the political direction coming from Washington, DC. In all cases AMA has been able to work with the agencies in a respectful manner.

I can make the same comment regarding the State Legislature. Alaska has some very competent legislators and staff that work extremely hard and do not get the recognition they deserve. Thank you! Now there are some legislators that in the words of President Ronald Reagan “know a lot of things that are simply not true.” Even with these we have maintained a cordial relationship.

So what are the big issues for the future? One of the biggest is wetlands. It is interesting that wetlands was one of the first major issues that AMA faced in November of 1989 as when I began as Executive Director. Then President Bush at a Ducks Unlimited banquet declared a policy of “no net loss” of wetlands. As a 30+ year member of DU I knew exactly what he meant… lakes and streams with ducks and geese. But no, the USF&WS and the EPA immediately saw this as a green light to attack the use of all federal, state and private lands and jumped on this with a vengeance. We are still fighting the battle… and loosing. Remember the Pacific Legal Foundation wins in the U.S. Supreme Court in Rapanos and SWANCC? What about all the discussion of the definition of “fill.” Yes this issue is “wetlands.” And “mountain top mining” in West Virginia … this is actually dealing with “valley fill” and wetlands 404 permits. Much closer to home the entire issue of tailings placement at Kensington was over wetlands.

There are other issues for the future and the Endangered Species Act, RS-2477 rights-of-way, and the need for infrastructure to access much of Alaska will surely be some on them. There is also the lurking danger of international designations like World Heritage Sites and Biosphere Reserves. Any attempts to create such designations must be fought to the death.

There are dozens of issues that could hurt Alaska and mining in particular and we must remain diligent and on our guard at all times. I found that the issues on my screen usually changed as the year progressed and items that had been dormant for months or years suddenly arose. I suggest that we must always be diligent for these as “targets of opportunity” and be prepared to move on them at a moment’s notice. The need is for “constant diligence.”

With that I bring this Update to a close. I commend the next AMA Executive Director, Fred Parady, to you. I am very pleased with his selection and I could not have written a better resume for the position. Please make a point of meeting Fred and inviting him to visit your operations or office as the case may be. 

I also wish to thank everyone for their support of the AMA and of me personally. I especially thank AMA staff and the dozen or more AMA Presidents that I have had the honor to work for over the past years.

 

Steve Borell

 

P.S. – Marilyn and I do not plan to leave Alaska. I have formed a company, Borell Consulting Services LLC, and plan to stay active in the mining industry.