Transboundary. We are making progress to protect our waters from potential BC mine hazards! Awareness that those living, working and visiting southeast Alaska are concerned about our water quality grows worldwide. There are important, high-level meetings planned this month that will hopefully bring us more solidified protection on federal and state levels. Sign this simple petition to encourage federal action. We’d love to have 10,000 more signatures by mid-April so feel free to share it.
bit.ly/protectSEwaters
Lt. Governor Byron Mallott formally asked the U.S. State Department specific questions about the International Joint Commission (IJC) process after recognizing that Alaskans (such as USAG) are concerned about BC mines and that the state may not be able to fully protect us.
After requests for transparency between the Lt. Governor’s office (who is overseeing fisheries and transboundary waters) and the rest of us, they now share regular Canadian Mine status reports with USAG that were once for internal viewing only. If you are interested in receiving these let me know. Otherwise, you can view current info on Alaska’s Dept of Natural Resources site under ‘Canadian Large Projects’.
Here are two good transboundary articles: “Mining Dams Grow to Colossal Heights, and So Do the Risks” and “Indigenous People ‘Sing’ for the Earth”
This recently-released report shows “The one existing and three proposed porphyry copper mines in the transboundary region are all of similar design to the Mount Polley dam that failed, but all are much larger and each will impound many times more tailings than Mount Polley. Unlike the Mount Polley Mine, these transboundary mines are largely acid-generating, so the ecological consequences are significantly greater. These projects as currently designed are not employing best available technology for their proposed tailings impoundments as it is understood after the Mount Polley failure. While there is still ample time to change these mine proposals to conform to best practices, it is not clear that will happen.”
Imperial Metals, owner of Red Chris Mine and Mount Polley, reports significant financial losses in 2015 and 2014. The 2015 loss was primarily driven by the loss from mine operations, foreign exchange losses on non-current debt, the inclusion of interest expense in the Statement of Income effective July 1, 2015, relating to the commencement of commercial production at the Red Chris mine, offset in part by realized and unrealized gains on derivative instruments. The 2014 loss was primarily related to the $67.4 million provision for rehabilitation costs taken by the Company for the Mount Polley tailings dam breach, and foreign exchange losses on non-current debt.
ADF&G. Highlights of the 2015 statewide salmon harvest include the second largest pink salmon harvest and the fourth largest sockeye salmon harvest on record. The 2016 salmon forecast include projected above-average commercial harvests of sockeye salmon in Copper River, Upper Cook Inlet, and Bristol Bay. If realized, the 2016 forecast total harvest of 161 million salmon would be far fewer than the 268 million salmon harvested during 2015; mostly due to fewer projected pink salmon harvested during 2016 (90.1 million) than during 2015 (190.5 million). Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2016 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2015 Season Report
Alaska Fisheries Enhancement Report 2015
As the international salmon market struggles with price forces such as the U.S. dollar’s relative strength, Russian import bans, farmed fish and oversupply from the 2014 harvest, ADF&G forecasts fewer salmon this year, especially pinks and sockeye. Full article.
GM Salmon. A thorough article about GM salmon “False Claims About Frankenfish”
If you support us, THANK you! If you don’t, please consider doing so HERE.
Cynthia Wallesz
Executive Director
United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters
PO Box 2196
Petersburg, AK 99833
(208) 995-7400 (cell)
ph: (253) 237-3099 Google Voice
https://www.akgillnet.org/
usag.alaska@gmail.com