The resident historian to the state’s largest failing newspaper detoured into an online fight with Alaska’s mining trade association this week.
David Reamer, who contributes to the Anchorage Daily News on snippets for state and local stories of the past, took time to spar with the Alaska Miners Association on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In a post, the mining association wrote “Greta Schuerch, Teck Alaska Red Dog Mine, presents to the Alaska House Resources Committee on the mine’s amazing story of benefitting a region, Alaska Native Corporation region, and being responsible stewards of the environment.”
The association was engaged in its annual trade trip to the state capitol building in Juneau. The journey to southeast Alaska’s largest city, where the largest private sector employers are the Greens Creek and Kensington Mines, is a unique opportunity for the large metal mine and placer operators to speak with lawmakers and staff.
It is also a chance for the Resources committees in both the House and Senate to get updated the status of the industry, and to dispel the rumors that this intensive activity generates from entrenched environmental groups.
Reamer followed up on the mining group’s tweet by writing “To learn more about their role as stewards of the environment, just google ‘Red Dog Mine and EPA.’”
The dog whistle employed by Reamer is a catchall the environmental lobby has used for years on mines in Alaska: Invoke the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the disputes between operators and bureaucracies who engage in wars of definitions.
The EPA under the Obama and Biden administrations were actively colluding with environmental activists on controversial proposed mines, such as the Pebble Project in southwest Alaska. This collusion included “findings” of environmental unsuitability, and “risk of unmanaged release.” These type of terms served as the impetus for recently Democratic-leaning communities in the Midwest, such as in northern Minnesota, voting for President Donald Trump.
The mining association attempted to clarify the record in the online exchange “Misleading statement. You’re referring to the TRI- a program where permitted facilities report “releases” into contained and permitted sites. What this means is: when a truck hauls a bucketful of mineral rich dirt from one area to another, it’s called a “release” and must be reported.”
Reamer’s response was to link an article from the publicly subsidized state radio network on the dispute between the Red Dog Mine and the EPA, including a settlement.
Anyone who has worked in the resource industry in Alaska has had to experience the eye rolling faux outrage about “spills” on the North Slope (engine oil from a truck leaching onto an absorbent pad which must be classified as a spill) to the release of “toxic material.” What is profoundly enraging to the mining community when confronted with these types of attacks is not just their lack of truth (the Alaska mining sector is one of the safest in the world) but also the willful use of misinformation that was abetted by government and media officials.
The sadness of this exhange is that there is a powerful story of the people in rural, predominantly Alaska Native northwest region, rising up and reducing poverty, child and adult mortality, and providing the dignity of multi-generational jobs. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s three daughters, who are Alaska Native, have worked at Red Dog. The environmental record for one of the largest zinc mines on earth has been a model the Alaska Miners Association holds for how to mitigate natural environmental contamination. But that story won’t be told.
The Binkley family, which owns the ADN, are prominent supporters of mining projects. It is ironic that the in-house designated expert on Alaska’s past would use such blatant tactics from partisan opponents to make a snide point.
Readers to that publication should thus be prepared for a forthcoming story or perhaps a series from this individual on “the troubled history of mining in rural Alaska.”
Of course, expect the historic environmental remediation efforts, including making the Red Dog Creek, which was naturally toxic due to latent zinc levels now fit for fish to swim in, will be omitted.
Suzanne Downing is the editor of Must Read Alaska. Her family arrived in Alaska in 1969 thanks to mining opportunities.
