Oxidized rock colors a valley where one of Seabridge Gold’s KSM project’s open pit mines will be dug in British Columbia. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/ CoastAlaska News)
One of 2014’s largest Southeast Alaska issues didn’t even start in the state.
It happened just across the border, in British Columbia. There, mining companies were searching for gold and making plans to dig it – and other valuable metals – out of the ground.
Annita McPhee is a tribal activist critical of mining near her Northern B.C. home.
“We don’t want our livelihood destroyed. We don’t want our watershed destroyed. It’s a very sacred place to us,” McPhee said.
She joined Southeast tribal leaders in a spring forum raising the profile of transboundary mine threats.
Concern spread on this side of the border, as fisheries, environmental groups and some cities lobbied for action against the mines.
But developers said they’d be careful.
“The guiding principal behind the design of the KSM project was the protection of the downstream environments,” said Brent Murphy, president of Seabridge Gold. Seabridge owns a large exploration site northwest of Ketchikan.
At year’s end, the only mine close to opening was the Red Chris, upstream from Wrangell and Petersburg. Its start was delayed after a dam break at its sister mine, the Mount Polley, to the east.
2014 saw several major developments in the timber industry.
Clearcuts and old-growth forests are part of the view of Indian Valley on Prince of Wales Island. The Forest Service just announced three more timber sales in the Island’s Big Thorne area. (Nick Bonzey, Flick Creative Commons)
The Forest Service began the year by forming a citizens’ committee to help map a transition from logging older trees to younger stands of timber. The fall brought a large timber sale, Big Thorne, on Prince of Wales Island. That of course is tied up in the courts.
The industry got a huge boost in December, when Congress passed a bill transferring 70,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest to the Sealaska regional Native corporation.
Most of the land is for logging, which brought opposition from fishing, conservation and other groups concerned about impacts.
During a congressional hearing, General Counsel Jaeleen Araujo said the corporation would take care of the land.
“My people have loved this place, lived in this place, savored this place for longer than your lifetimes, and mine,” Araujo said.
2014 saw some changes in Southeast’s legislative delegation.
Ketchikan Independent Dan Ortiz narrowly won a House seat that had been held for years by a Republican.
And Juneau Democrat Sam Kito III won one of the capital city’s House seats after being appointed to fill in for a retiring lawmaker earlier in the year.
Among other top regional news of 2014:
- Juneau’s Byron Mallott, a Native leader and former mayor, became Alaska’s first Tlingit lieutenant governor.
- Work began in Ketchikan on new ferries that will sail northern Southeast.
- New leaders took the helm at Sealaska, Tlingit-Haida Central Council and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.
- And, cruise-ship tourism remained about the same, with about a million people sailing through Southeast waters.
