The Unuk River runs from British Columbia to Southeast Alaska through the Misty Fjords National Monument near Ketchikan, Alaska. One of southern Alaska’s largest rivers in the Ketchikan area, it produces more king salmon than any stream in the region.

Seabridge Gold, a Canadian company, is pursuing the permitting of a large open pit mine 400 times bigger than the Kensington Mine. This proposed mine, Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM), would dump 2.1 Billion Tons of toxic mine and acid waste in the Unuk and Nass River watersheds. The location of the proposed mine is just north of the US border in BC. Access would be via a new road along the northern Unuk and would include a large bridge crossing the river. The “Open Pit” of the mine is to be on Sulphurets Creek, a tributary of the Unuk River with a 15 mile tunnel for transporting ore to a processing facility on the Nass River.

Toxic mine and acid waste from the open pit mine would be dammed, marginally treated and then will run into Sulphurets Creek. Seabridge fails to account for the countless subterranean rivers beginning on the Canadian side eventually to join with the Unuk and Chickamin Rivers.

See why Open Pit Mines are bad for the Unuk River:

The Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell is scheduled to begin the permitting process through the BC government in late 2012.

What can you do?

Contact the Ministry of British Columbia, Environmental Protection Division at: 250.387.1288, or Email: envprotdiv@Victoria1.gov.bc.ca

Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Office of the Commissioner at: 907.269.8431, or Email: daniel.sullivan@alaska.gov

For additional information, visit The Unuk River Post
Consider signing the Petition

However, the site is not NI 43-101 compliant which leaves it wide open for exaggerated claims. NI 43-101 is a mineral resource classification scheme used for public disclosure relating to minerals properties in Canada.  NI 43-101, a guideline for how public companies disclose scientific and technical information about mineral projects, does not apply to Bokan.  The purpose  of NI 43-101 is to ensure that misleading, erroneous or fraudulent information relating to mineral properties is not published or promoted to investors on the stock exchange overseen by the Canadian Securities Authority.  Since the mine is in the US, Ucore is not subject to Canadian regulations.

Ucore is downplaying the fact that Kendrick Creek is listed as high priority by the State of Alaska Contamination Sites Program because of heavy metals and radioactive isotopes left by the Ross-Adams mine.  Kendrick Creek, a stream used for subsistence salmon and shellfish harvest, in addition to a significant commercial salmon harvest, is again under threat.

TCS, along with Greenpeace, GSACC and Cascadia Wildlands submitted comments on the Tonka timber sale, located on the Lindenburg Peninsula on Kupreanof Island. Despite the points raised, the Forest Service chose Alternative 4, clearcutting 38.5 MMBF.  Units were dropped from the sale that are included in Roadless.

The Lindenburg Peninsula has already been heavily impacted by previous timber sales.  As a result, deer harvests have crashed.  Additional clear cutting will further decrease deer numbers.

The Forest Service is holding community meetings in a show of achieving consensus.  However, community meetings do not satisfy the concerns of stakeholders; true consensus for this particular sale would protections for the Pothole, a protected cove in Wrangell Narrows, home to significant numbers of Dungeness crab.  The Forest Service is applying for a permit that would allow them to store  logs in Pothole. If the State does approve the permit for log storage, crab fishermen will lose an important crab fishing area.

TCS will appeal the Record of Decision.

TCS opposes S 730 and HR 1408, cited as “Southeast Alaska Native Land Entitlement Finalization and Jobs Protection Acts”.  These bills propose to transfer publicly owned lands in the Tongass National Forest to a private company, Sealaska Corp. Sealaska already selected its remaining lands from the agreed upon withdrawal areas in accordance with The Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act on June 10, 2008.  We oppose allowing Sealaska Corporation to select lands other than those already selected within the boundaries established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.  These outside selections would significantly compromise the unique values of the Tongass National Forest for wildlife habitat, fish propagation and recreational opportunities now available to all Americans. Passage would undermine the Tongass Land Management Plan and the Tongass Transition Framework being developed by the USDA.  S 730 and HR 1408 would authorize an exchange of low value timberland for some of the best fish and wildlife habitat in the United States, if not the world, so Sealaska Corporation can log these areas and ship the unprocessed logs overseas.

Our concern about this threat to the ecological integrity of the Tongass National Forest comes from direct observation of Sealaska’s intensive logging practices (practices that would be illegal on National Forest land) including: clearcutting timber from the alpine edge all the way to the beach without leaving any remnant old-growth stands of trees and leaving inadequate timber buffers along waterways to protect resident and anadromous fish stream habitat. Many of our members make their livelihood from fishing on the waters of the Tongass National Forest.  Still others are in visitor, tourism and outdoor recreation businesses.  S730 and HR 1408 would privatize dozens of undeveloped coves, bays and streams currently publicly accessible for recreational use.  The “enterprise/native futures” sites are poorly defined in these bills, leaving valuable archeological sites of interest to all of humanity at risk of unrestricted eventual development.  For example:  The oldest human remains yet found in North America have been found in the Prince of Wales Island Archipelago, the site of most of Sealaska Corporation’s selections in these bills, and these human remains are not genetically related to the Alaska Native peoples currently residing in Southeast Alaska.

Additional Congressional action is not necessary for the Bureau of Land Management to complete conveyance of Sealaska Corporation land entitlements under ANCSA.  Finalization of these entitlements should be a priority, but TCS does not agree with any proposal that extends beyond the withdrawal areas agreed upon under ANCSA and strongly opposes S730 and HR 1408.

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