Legislature(1999 - 2000)
03/31/1999 03:12 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SCR 7-TULSEQUAH CHIEF MINE
MR. WILLIAMS, testifying from Atlin, stated he believes the
Tulsequah Chief Mine project will benefit the communities from
Whitehorse to Skagway. He stated he represents about 40 people who
support the project.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD noted the committee received a petition signed by
a number of people who support the project, and the petition has
been entered into the record.
MR. BOB CARMICHAEL, a local contractor and former road
superintendent, testified from Atlin in support of the Tulsequah
Chief Mine project as it will provide year-round employment for
local people and allow them to stay in the community.
SENATOR PEARCE informed committee members she sent a memo to both
Commissioners Rue and Brown asking them to describe their
continuing concerns about the project related to the response
received from the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands
and Parks(BCMELP) in November about the Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation's (ADEC) and the Alaska Department of
Fish and Game's (ADFG) environmental concerns. She noted neither
department responded to the BCMELP response. She asked both
Commissioners to bring the concerns that they do not believe can be
resolved directly with the BCMELP to the Alaska Legislature. She
explained her ongoing concern is that Alaska should not try to
impose its permitting process on to another government and she
believes the Administration has taken a position that will
ultimately disable the project from moving forward.
MR. MICHAEL CONWAY, Director of Statewide Public Service Division
of DEC, stated he is involved in the coordination of permitting and
overview of the Tulsequah Chief Mine. He stated one outcome of the
government to government interaction that has benefitted both sides
has been the ability to continue a dialog about the standards. The
Canadians have reviewed Alaska's water quality standards and find
their own to be comparable. ADEC and ADFG have told the BCMELP
they are not interested in permitting the project but they want
assurances that the resources at risk are protected. BCMELP has
worked directly with Alaska permitting staff to exchange
information.
SENATOR PEARCE asked Mr. Conway to address ADEC's concerns in the
order contained in the response from BCMELP. She pointed out it is
her understanding that the response from BCMELP addressed each
concern raised by the federal government and ADEC and ADFG.
MR. CONWAY said ADEC and ADFG are in agreement with the points made
in that response. He discussed the Summary of Technical Responses
on page 3 as follows. The first issue is about the tailings
impoundment. The USEPA is handling the tailings impoundment issue
and continuing government to government negotiations between the
Canadian government and Region X of EPA are ongoing.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if EPA Region X requested mediation. MR.
CONWAY replied that he believes the request made was a consolidated
effort by state and federal agencies.
SENATOR 236
SENATOR PEARCE stated her concern is that it is unnecessary to use
channels in Washington, D.C., and that Alaska officials can pick up
the phone and call the Canadian officials. She asked Mr. Conway
why the Administration is pushing state department intervention
when he just said ADEC does not have any specific disagreements
with the Canadian government's response. She emphasized there is
no point in escalating problems with British Columbia
unnecessarily, and that anytime the U.S. government and Ottawa get
involved the issue gets more confusing and less is accomplished.
MR. CONWAY replied ADEC is speaking directly with BC government
officials so a direct process is ongoing.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked Mr. Conway to continue discussing ADEC's
specific concerns.
MR. CONWAY stated monitoring long term enforcement has not been an
issue with ADEC and the Migratory Bird Act issue is either an ADFG
or US Fish and Wildlife concern, not ADEC's.
MR. CONWAY referred to page 8 of the BC government's response to
the development of design specifications covering mixing zones.
BCMELP has reviewed the Alaska mixing zone regulation and
agrees with the proposed remedy as it relates to the
decision on the waste management act permit.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD affirmed ADEC and the BC government are in
agreement on that issue. MR. CONWAY said that is correct.
MR. CONWAY stated ADEC and the BC government also agree on number
2(b) of the response, entitled "Chronic Mine Effluent Toxicity,"
which reads:
Canada and BC agree with the three items identified in
the remedy as it relates to the issuance of the waste
management act permit and the approach to be undertaken
is summarized below.
MR. CONWAY referred to 2(c) on page 9, entitled, "Turbidity and
Sedimentation," and read the following:
BCMELP agrees with the two items identified in the remedy
and the approach to the undertaking as summarized below.
He said there is no disagreement here, nor with 2(d).
MR. CONWAY summarized that, in essence, the Canadians have agreed
to work with us to get information. The remaining issues we have
pertain to getting the opportunity to review the actual
information. They have agreed on the approach by working with us
several times a week on exchanging information. There are about a
dozen items the Division still needs to get information on even
though DEC is busy permitting Alaska projects.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if DEC felt the IJC was necessary.
MR. CONWAY answered that he didn't know since good progress is
being made. But prior to the Governor requesting the referral, we
were being left out of the discussion.
He noted that the way Canada permits their projects, they do a
different level of prepermitting and getting the permit out. Once
the project starts, they go back and make changes and redesign the
project. They have a lot of monitoring and oversight enforcement.
Number 342
SENATOR PEARCE said she thought they used the same process to
develop other mines in our joint watersheds in Southeast. She
asked Mr. Conway if there was anything he had asked for that they
had flat out said "No" to.
MR. CONWAY answered no.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked if there are major concerns on his list that
feels won't be addressed.
MR. CONWAY explained that most of the tasks on his list will take
months to accumulate the information. Some of them require three
or four months like the risk assessment which requires looking at
the representative samples of the effluent. We also need mixing
zone calculations which they call dilution. We haven't asked them
to adopt Alaska's water quality standards, but have asked for
something comparable. They are responding with what they say is an
equivalent. Base line data is needed and spring is the best time
to do that. Toxicity testing needs to be done for both acute and
chronic toxicity. We haven't seen the data Mr. Ringstad referred
to showing that the trout all survived after 36 hours (LC50 test).
SENATOR LINCOLN asked if there was anything to keep the Canadian
group from continuing their project and are we slowing it up with
our list.
MR. CONWAY said he didn't believe we were slowing them up. This
project requires follow-through as with any U.S. mine. After four
years of work, a U.S. mine is about ready to go; whereas the
Canadian project is behind because their process is a bit
different.
SENATOR PEARCE clarified that no one alleged that the permitting
process was stopping the project, but that going to the IJC would
likely take two years which would slow down the mine.
SENATOR LINCOLN wanted to make sure that the things they are
requesting do not hold up the project.
Number 420
MR. KEN TAYLOR, Director, Division of Habitat, said his concerns
are primarily related to salmon and salmon habitat. The Taku is a
producer of all five species of salmon in the Pacific and is the
largest producer in Southeast, producing as much as 2 million
salmon annually. About 400,000 are cohos, 300,000 are sockeyes,
100,000 king salmon, 1 million pinks, and about 50,000 chums. This
river's production compares very evenly with the Copper River, the
Susitna, and the Yukon Rivers. They would be asking the same
questions and seeking the same assurances if a project were
proposed in any of the other large rivers.
The economic value of the Taku salmon resource is really large.
The commercial gillnet fishery is worth about $2.8 million to about
100 permit holders and the commercial troll harvest of coho for 460
permit holders is worth about $1 million with an average catch of
about 58,000 cohos. These don't include the value of the salmon to
the seafood processors in local communities.
Sport angling on the Taku is also extremely important, contributing
about $6.4 million in direct spending to the Juneau economy. In
high years, as many as 10,000 kings are taken - about 40 percent of
which are from the Taku; about 50,000 cohos - about 40 percent from
Taku; and about 32,000 anglers receive benefits from this system.
In the US/Canada Salmon Treaty process, both countries have
committed to special enhancement and conservation measures for
trans boundary stocks that include the Taku River sockeyes. The
State's special concern for Taku River salmon is consistent with
our position in other treaty negotiations.
MR. TAYLOR said our major concerns now are with the 75 miles of
road that would access the mine site and the many river crossings.
If they are not designed, constructed, and maintained properly, we
are going to lose spawning habitat. We have very limited field
studies documenting sockeye spawning adjacent to and immediately
down stream of the mine site; this applies to juvenile coho,
sockeye, and king salmon just downstream of the mine, as well.
Most extensive thorough surveys are expected to document additional
salmon spawning and rearing areas at stream crossings and in areas
potentially affected by the effluent. The proposed tailings
disposal site is on an active alluvial fan and adequate base line
data and detailed engineering are not yet available to assure the
State there will not be water quality problems.
MR. TAYLOR said he thought it was reasonable that critically
important concerns be resolved prior to permitting, but the
Canadians have a different process. We are not asking them to
adopt our process, but we do want to be involved in the critical
decisions that should be made before the overall decision is made.
The toxicity of mixing zones to fish is still unknown for several
reasons and this is being worked on with DEC. The Tulsequah ore
body is very similar to that of the Britannia Mine which has
destroyed the salmon run in Britannia Creek and further impacted
Howe Sound. Contingency plans for emergency closure of the mine
and the level of government inspections and enforcement capability
is one of the things we think should be finalized as part of the
mine approval process, not something that should happen afterwards,
he said.
Our involvement in the Canadian review process has been
constructive and we have been making progress. We still have
numerous concerns regarding fish habitat protection. Many of these
concerns have been protected in the response we got from Canada.
The response is still fairly vague because there are a lot of
unknowns. Our Canadian technical counterparts have agreed our
resource concerns are legitimate ones.
In discussions with Canada, MR. TAYLOR said, we have begun to agree
on reasonably mine development standards, but so far it's informal
and voluntary and relies on Canada's continued invitation to us to
participate.
In summary, Alaska has enormous economic interest in this watershed
and we're proud of the fact that our salmon stocks are healthy
including those in the Taku River and we want to keep them that
way. Quite frankly, we look south across the border and are less
than impressed with British Columbia's commitment to healthy and
productive salmon fisheries. The bottom line is when we look at
the cost and benefits of the Tulsequah Chief mine, it appears that
the costs are all on our side of the border and the benefits are on
the Canadian side, but we have never said no to the mine and we are
looking to get answers to serious questions. We are asking to have
a specified meeting for a role in the permit process. Because the
mine is in a different country, we have had to use different tools
to protect our vitally important salmon resources.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if there was any point at which the
Department expects to have access to an evaluation on-site of raw
data and information and actually look at potential stream
crossings.
MR. TAYLOR answered that he wasn't sure when that point would be,
but when they get to the point of design, he hoped we would be
involved since we have quite a bit of expertise in the Division on
design and construction to mitigate or prevent damage to spawning
habitats. He understands there are nine major stream crossing and
probably as many as 200 culverts that will be necessary in this
system. If they are not designed properly, they will cut off a lot
of spawning habitat.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD commented that it will take a lot of finesse not
to look like a direct attack on the sovereignty of the country.
MR. TAYLOR agreed and said they don't have any direct funding to do
these kinds of things. We are working in cooperation with
California, Washington, and Oregon on culvert designs that will
benefit the spawning salmon. This is the cutting edge of
construction design that will benefit everybody. If the Canadians
are not interested now, they will be soon.
SENATOR PEARCE asked if there are specific questions the Canadian
government haven't addressed.
MR. TAYLOR answered one of the problems we are having is in the
mixing zone design. We are dealing with a river that changes
channels quite a bit. The mixing zone requires a certain amount of
water to accomplish the detoxifying of the effluent. We don't
know, at this point, what will happen if the river changes channels
and they have their mixing somewhere else. These types of
questions need to still be addressed.
SENATOR PEARCE asked if we are requiring cleaner effluent than the
intake water like we do in our own state.
MR. CONWAY answered that we are not requiring anything, but we are
asking for the data they have on it. If it got to a situation
where we had some concerns about that level of effluent, we would
have a technical discussion about it to see if we could solve that
dispute. We haven't gotten to that point, yet. We would not
require them to have a higher standard than we have in Alaska.
We have agreement on them doing mixing zone calculations and
getting that information. We haven't seen the data.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked who's in charge of mixing zones.
MR. CONWAY answered that Division of Water Quality.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if he would be in charge of the migration of
the mixing zone with the migration of the mixing stream.
MR. CONWAY said that is correct; they would do modeling of it and
set up a sampling plan that would show how it's moving according to
that model. The Alaskans and Canadians have agreed to this, but in
authorizing a mixing zone, there are a number of things people need
to show. He also regularly consults with ADF&G to make sure they
are comfortable that the habitat and biota are protected.
Number 570
SENATOR PEARCE moved to adopt a conceptual amendment adding the
name of the member of the BC Assembly from the Taku area to the
list of people this resolution will be sent to. There were no
objections and it was adopted.
SENATOR PARNELL moved to pass CSSCR 7(RES) with individual
recommendations. There were no objections and it was so ordered.
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