The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly meeting on Thursday already has a full agenda, but it just got more complicated. Two environmental action groups are coordinating to bring in a room full of protesters to stage what may be, in fact, a sit-in at the meeting, which starts at 6 p.m.
Assembly Presiding Officer Savannah Fletcher may have had advance notice of the protest, because she had already reserved a back-up meeting to finish Thursday’s agenda items, should this meeting be disrupted.
The group Alaskans for Safe Alaska Highways shared a notice that Save Our Domes and Northern Alaska Environmental Center, both of which are opposed to mining in the Interior, are planning to arrive en masse. The groups plan to take over the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting, and encouraged others to join them to crowd the room. “[W]e would we would love to have additional support sitting in the Borough chambers with us.”
The borough assembly meeting takes place in the Assembly Chambers, 907 Terminal Street.
The two groups are trying to stop the Manh Chou and Kinross mine projects. They’ve done this in the past, with protests against the Ambler Road. They’ve traveled to Anchorage to protest and brought north protesters from Anchorage to beef up to their numbers. When the group launches an action, it often comes with plenty of signs and banners for media attention.
“Industrial hard rock mining in the Interior is rapidly coming online and many people in the community feel this is incompatible with the areas in which we live and recreate,” the groups said in their notice. “Many of these projects propose to use our public roads to truck mining ore to Ft. Knox, similar to the Manh Choh operation, for years to come.”
The Northern Environmental Center is mostly funded by interest earned from the Glenmede Endowment Fund, which is a $1.5 million environmental-focused endowment that allows the group to lobby, train, and advocate without having to scrape for other funding.
“If the potential outcome wasn’t so harmful to the state of Alaska’s employment and energy future, Thursday’s ENGO actions would be comical. These are the same people who use items made from mined materials and petroleum products in every facet of their lives. They whine about responsible development in Alaska, but dismiss that the alternative to domestic development is empowering Communist China, Russia, OPEC nations and despot dictators who hate everything the U.S. stands for,” said Rick Whitbeck, Alaska state director for Power The Future. “Maybe they don’t care about U.S. energy security? Maybe they secretly love the CCP? Their actions show just how out of touch they are with the clear majority of Alaskans.”
In October, the Northern Environmental Center will cohost Antifa-style training for “activists and organizers of all levels and experience.” The two-day non-violent direct action and arts workshop is Oct. 5-6, with trainers from across the state will provide information on the “philosophies of direct action, give tactics and tools to help you start or further develop your campaign, and guide campaign and art development, leading to the positive change we want to see in our communities!”
