RIVERS WITHOUT BORDERS

Bankrupt CEO trying again to open Tulsequah mine.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Former Tulsequah mine CEO wants it back

State asks that acid drainage be cleaned up

with pending mine transfer

By Kim Marquis | JUNEAU EMPIRE

Michael Penn / Juneau Empire

Heavy metals run out of the Tulsequah Chief mine opening and down to holding ponds next to the Tulsequah River. Leakage from those ponds can be seen entering the river that flows into the Taku River downstream.

The state of Alaska wants any new owner of the Tulsequah Chief mine to show it can afford to clean up acid mine drainage leaking into the Taku River watershed, as well as have a viable plan with a timetable to do the clean-up.

State officials made the comments in a letter submitted this week to the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office, after being invited to comment on a pending transfer of the mine to a new company.

The new company, Chieftain Metals Inc., incorporated in Canada late last year under Terence Chandler, the former CEO of Redfern Corp., which tried to open the mine but went bankrupt in March 2009.

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Alaskan Fishermen receive support for study on Taku fishery

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

 Fishermen receive support for

study on Taku fishery

By Kim Marquis | JUNEAU EMPIRE

Commercial fishermen won a quick victory at the end of the Legislative session to fund a study on the effects of acid mine drainage from the Tulsequah Chief mine. The mine is located on the Taku River watershed and its salmon fishery.

United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters brought a request for $35,000 to $50,000 to Juneau Rep. Beth Kerttula on April 14 in a letter outlining their concerns. The session ended April 19, the day lawmakers passed the capital budget with a $35,000 appropriation for the study.

"There are serious concerns from fishermen that the acid flow is damaging existing salmon habitat and direct effects on adult salmon, eggs, alevin and smolt," Executive Director Chris Knight wrote in the request to Kerttula.

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Taku River system needs same protection as Bristol Bay

Nancy Lord, Alaska’s writer laureate, sent this editorial
to the Alaska Daily News:

 Anchorage Daily News

Published: April 27, 2010

Taku River system needs same protection as Bristol Bay

COMPASS: Other points of view

By NANCY LORD

Secretary Salazar, in announcing the Department of the Interior’s new oil and gas development strategy, set aside Bristol Bay, "a national treasure that we must protect for future generations." Those of us who care about salmon and the communities they support were glad to hear this. Now, if those same salmon and communities can also be protected from mining pollution and other threats.

This thought led me to think of another of our salmon rivers and its threats and opportunities. Back in 2004 I had the good fortune to spend eight days rafting down the Taku River, from a drop-off in the mountains of northwest British Columbia to Taku Inlet near Juneau. (I wrote about the experience as a special feature for this paper that year.) I hadn’t known before floating the river what stunning, wild country the Taku traversed, nor that that river is the largest salmon producer in Southeast Alaska, with a monetary value of more than $8 million that year. I was astonished then that a river and watershed of such enormous value were unprotected. Six years later, they still lack deserved protections, and it’s beyond time to do something about that.

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Taku Story in Common Sense Canadian

 Taku Watershed: Salmon

Stronghold Threatened by Mine

Written by Rafe Mair

A world-renown tourism destination and home to all five species of pacific salmon, multiple species of trout, and 200 plant and animal species, the Taku Watershed is threatened by a plan to
re-open a 50 year-old mine.

Photo by David Nunuk

You will know Rex Weyler as a co-founder of Greenpeace, the author of the definitive history of that organization which started in Vancouver, and author of many books the most recent of which was The Jesus Sayings.

Not long ago I attended a public meeting on the public power issue and heard Rex speak and an eloquent and timely speech it was. It made me uncomfortable, as I’m sure it did others because I could see he was talking to all of us. Simply put, our desire to consume is running ahead of the world’s ability to supply what we want. Rex concentrated on oil, the production of which has peaked – meaning that we consume more than is being discovered – but he went further and described what we now insist upon having, compared to that which satisfied our grandparents. He asks if we’re really happier than they were.

Photo by Mark Connor

It made me think – since last December, Wendy and I have flown to London and return, then to Auckland for a cruise that got us to Bangkok thence the flight home – nearly 50 hours of helping airlines consume fossil fuels not to mention the cruise ship. Was Rex talking to us?

You’re damned right he was – all of us.

We, all of us, must re-evaluate our priorities. The older of us grew up in the era where there was always another valley to log and another stream to take the place of the one under the new subdivision. There was this need to constantly expand without any concern for the consequences. Rex asks the critical questions that I used to ask when I chaired meetings on Sustainability for Metro Vancouver – where does it all end? Do we just go on expanding, cutting an ever-greater swath through the environment without a care because we just know there must be more nice stuff over yonder mountain?

Perhaps it’s best that we do our plundering of Mother Earth far away where we can’t see it…In a recent article I asked why, if we were going to turn Fish Lake into a toxic dump for a mine, shouldn’t we log Stanley Park, subdivide Little Mountain and develop Burns Bog? What right have we to save our favourite places while destroying areas we can’t see?

We, at The Common Sense Canadian are committed to fighting the Campbell’s private river policy with all our might and main – while devastation is planned over that range of mountains that blocks our view of the Taku River.

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New Buyer Interested in Tulsequah Chief Mine

There is a new buyer interested in the Tulsequah Chief mine property in the Taku watershed. Download the Juneau Empire story or read below for more information.  

A sale is pending on an old mine leaking polluted water into the Taku River watershed.
The unnamed company intends to purchase the Tulsequah Chief Mine in British Columbia, according to a memo distributed by the BC Environmental Assessment Office.

Former mine owner Redfern Corp. went bankrupt in March of 2009, after its plans to build an experimental hoverbarge to cart ore down the river met resistance from Juneau’s commercial
fishermen and other river users.

The Taku is a prized salmon habitat. Redfern’s bankruptcy receiver did not immediately return a call Friday requesting more information about the buyer. The company asked for the transfer to occur "as soon as possible," citing seasonal access issues and "barging of equipment to the site." That could mean a new owner intends to start barging materials to the mine this year, Rivers Without Borders Spokesman Chris Zimmer said. "My worry is we’ll be back to the same situation we were in before," he said.

Redfern’s barging plans met strong resistance in Juneau after being introduced in 2007. Meetings about the hoverbarge it was building to operate on the river were attended by hundreds. The barge was never finished. A new company would still need to acquire a permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for barge operations to the mine, which is difficult to access.

The river presents challenging navigation along the approximately 40 miles inland to the mine. The Taku River Tlingit First Nation opposes a road across its land, and a Redfern study in 2006 showed the cost to build a road would render the project unfeasible. BC officials asked members of a project work group to comment on the new request to transfer certificates, setting an April 26 deadline. The group includes Alaskan officials from several state departments. None could be reached for comment late Friday.

The mine was originally operated in the 1950s by Cominco, now Teck Cominco Ltd., which sold it to Redcorp. Canadian inspectors have known since 1990 that the mine is leaking sulfuric acid into the Tulsequah River, down the Taku River and into Southeast Alaska. Sulfuric acid is a toxic chemical that forms when compounds in the rock are exposed to air and water. It happens naturally, but in much greater quantities when construction activities disturb and grind rock.

Alaskan efforts to get the BC government to force a clean-up of the site have been largely ignored. A letter, signed in July 2009 by then-Gov. Sarah Palin, asked BC officials to force Redfern to retain water treatment equipment at the site. The letter was never answered. The equipment and everything else of apparent value was removed, according to people who live and work on the river.

While a new owner assumes responsibilities for clean-up, renewed efforts to extract ore would likely fund the expensive process. Redfern estimated its environmental responsibilities to cost more than $6 million, according to court records.

• Contact reporter Kim Marquis at 523-2279 or kim.marquis@juneauempire.com.

Taku named most important international salmon river in Canada and US.

In a clarion call for the protection of wild rivers, in order to protect wild salmon populations, the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council in Canada and the Wild Salmon Center in the U.S. named the Taku as the most important international salmon river. 

 Read the full opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun. 

Or,  download it here.

The Taku is a “River to Watch” on the 2010 BC Endangered Rivers List

 The Taku’s placement as a ‘River to watch’ on the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC’s annual Endangered Rivers List is a distinction that many people in both BC and Alaska hope will never amount to anything.

The nearly two million hectare Taku watershed straddles the border between northwestern BC and Southeast Alaska. It is vast, intact and abundant wilderness region. The Taku River at the watershed’s heart is the third largest salmon producer in BC, hosting all five species of wild Pacific salmon in an intact wilderness watershed uncontaminated by sea lice, and not fragmented by roads and other industrial development.

“In terms of what is at stake, for BC, for the local Taku River Tlingit First Nation, for Pacific salmon populations; the Taku would be high on any list. The fact that we are fortunate enough to still have an opportunity to protect the ecological and cultural values in this region, gives us the position of a ‘river to watch’” said Nola Poirier with Rivers Without Borders.

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Forecast not good for BC salmon

Stephen Hume writes about the 2010 forecast for BC salmon runs, and shows that salmon populations are in a precarious position, province-wide. 

Download the story.

More evidence that sea lice threaten wild salmon.

The Nanaimo Daily News reported today on the growing evidence of sea lice limiting salmon runs. 

Walter Cordery reports that "it looks like Alexandra Morton was right and that sea lice associated with fish farms are killing wild salmon." ( …)"Sea lice problems have skyrocketed in the past year to triple their numbers. They are growing resistant to the chemical the Norwegian fish farm industry uses to try to control them. This is disconcerting for British Columbians because Norwegian companies dominate the industry off the B.C. coast, owning more than 90% of the fish farms."

 Read the full story.

Biodiversity and Climate Action Strategy Report

In a report commissioned by 15 environmental organisations, including Forest Ethics, CPAWS, David Suzuki Foundation, and West Coast Environmental Law, senior scientist, Jim Pojar,  addresses both loss of biodiversity and a strategy for climate action. He calls on the BC government to maintain "intact forest systems, such that 50% of BC’s land base is managed with conservation as the priority goal. He asserts that doing so will "help prevent the release of greenhouse gases, ensure sufficient intact habitats to support healthy numbers of wild species, and help plants and animals adapt to climate change impacts." 

 Read the report summary. 

 Download the full report from Forest Ethics.