Legislature(1999 - 2000)
04/09/1999 01:12 PM House RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HOUSE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEE
April 9, 1999
1:12 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Scott Ogan, Co-Chair
Representative John Harris
Representative Carl Morgan
Representative Ramona Barnes
Representative Jim Whitaker
Representative Mary Kapsner
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Jerry Sanders, Co-Chair
Representative Beverly Masek, Vice Chair
Representative Reggie Joule
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
CS FOR SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 7(RES)
Supporting the responsible development of the Tulsequah Chief Mine
through the cooperative effort of Alaska and British Columbia and
urging Governor Knowles to withdraw his request for a referral of
the Tulsequah Chief Mine to the International Joint Commission
under the Boundary Waters Treaty.
- MOVED CSSCR 7(RES) OUT OF COMMITTEE
(* First public hearing)
PREVIOUS ACTION
BILL: SCR 7
SHORT TITLE: TULSEQUAH CHIEF MINE
SPONSOR(S): SENATOR(S) PEARCE, Phillips, Taylor
Jrn-Date Jrn-Page Action
3/18/99 600 (S) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRAL(S)
3/18/99 600 (S) RES
3/26/99 (S) RES AT 3:00 PM BUTROVICH 205
3/26/99 (S) HEARD AND HELD
3/31/99 (S) RES AT 3:00 PM BUTROVICH 205
3/31/99 (S) MOVED OUT OF COMMITTEE
4/01/99 (S) RLS AT 11:50 AM FAHRENKAMP 203
4/01/99 (S) MINUTE(RLS)
4/01/99 766 (S) RES RPT CS 4DP 1AM SAME TITLE
4/01/99 766 (S) DP: HALFORD, PARNELL, PETE KELLY,
GREEN;
4/01/99 766 (S) AM: LINCOLN
4/01/99 766 (S) ZERO FISCAL NOTE (S.RES)
4/06/99 794 (S) RULES TO CALENDAR AND 1DNP 4/6/99
4/06/99 794 (S) HELD TO 4/7/99 CALENDAR
4/07/99 (H) RES AT 1:00 PM CAPITOL 124
4/07/99 (H) POSTPONED TO 4/9/99
4/07/99 808 (S) READ THE SECOND TIME
4/07/99 808 (S) RES CS ADOPTED UNAN CONSENT
4/07/99 808 (S) PASSED Y14 N6
4/07/99 808 (S) ELLIS NOTICE OF RECONSIDERATION
4/08/99 819 (S) RECON TAKEN UP - IN THIRD READING
4/08/99 819 (S) PASSED ON RECONSIDERATION Y14 N6
4/08/99 829 (S) TRANSMITTED TO (H)
4/08/99 685 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRAL(S)
4/08/99 686 (H) RES
4/09/99 (H) RES AT 1:00 PM CAPITOL 124
WITNESS REGISTER
SENATOR DRUE PEARCE
Alaska State Legislature
Capitol Building, Room 111
Juneau, Alaska 99801
Telephone: (907) 465-4993
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified as sponsor of SCR 7.
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 99-24, SIDE A
Number 0001
CO-CHAIR SCOTT OGAN called the House Resources Standing Committee
meeting (which had been recessed on April 7), to order at 1:12 p.m.
Members present at the call to order were Representatives Ogan,
Harris, Morgan, Barnes and Whitaker. Representative Kapsner
arrived at 1:13 p.m. Representatives Sanders and Joule were
excused.
SCR 7 - TULSEQUAH CHIEF MINE
[Contains discussion of HCR 4. Extensive testimony on HCR 4, the
companion resolution, had been heard by the committee on March 26.]
CO-CHAIR OGAN brought before the committee CS for Senate Concurrent
Resolution No. 7(RES), supporting the responsible development of
the Tulsequah Chief Mine through the cooperative effort of Alaska
and British Columbia and urging Governor Knowles to withdraw his
request for a referral of the Tulsequah Chief Mine to the
International Joint Commission under the Boundary Waters Treaty.
Number 0064
SENATOR DRUE PEARCE, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor of SCR 7,
came forward. She told members the Knowles Administration has
asked the State Department to elevate questions about the
permitting process for the Tulsequah Chief Mine to the
International Joint Commission (IJC). Previously known as the
International Joint Boundary Commission, it originated in 1908 and
over the years has had a fairly strict definition of its actions in
law. The IJC process has traditionally been used to resolve
large-scale transboundary issues between Canada and the United
States, such as cleaning up the Great Lakes. It was not intended
back in 1908 as a political instrument to resolve minor disputes on
a project-by-project basis.
SENATOR PEARCE told members, "I was talking to our senior Senator
yesterday, and he expressed his concern about the IJC and their
interest in expanding their traditional role and function." She
told members that there has been coordinated opposition by
environmental groups, which she believes to be the primary
proponents of IJC intervention on both sides of the border. She
then stated:
We believe their agenda is to place a development moratorium
on the entire Taku River watershed, thereby stopping any
development in the Taku region; and, in fact, they have stated
that they are interested in wilderness designation for the
whole Taku River watershed. The same organizations have been
successful in convincing ... our state Administration to
request IJC intervention to further the goal, and the IJC is
currently laying groundwork to create something called an
international watershed management board that would allow the
appointed body - and these are appointed folks, they're not
elected - to oversee all development on all transboundary
watersheds. ...
When you look at the map, think of the impact that could have
in our state, particularly if a boundary watershed management
board decided to try to control the entire Yukon River
drainage. In its report entitled, "The IJC in the 21st
Century," the International Joint Commission provides their
vision of what the commission's role should be in the future.
The report describes the strategy for increasing the influence
of the IJC by, and I quote, in the report, they say themselves
they want to creatively expand its traditional role and
function. ...
These international watershed boards for individual
transboundary rivers could have broad-reaching effects on our
ability to manage our lands instate. Lands included within
transboundary watersheds encompass a large portion of Alaska
- as I stated, the entire Yukon River drainage. These lands
would all fall subject to the developmental jurisdiction of
the international watershed boards, comprised of appointed
bureaucrats from the United States and Canada; it's not even
from Alaska and British Columbia, or the Yukon.
The implications of watershed board strategy are enormous, and
the creation of the IJC boards would transfer control of land
use decisions in resource management from state authority to
a bi-national commission. We believe that using the IJC
process to resolve the situation as it pertains to the
Tulsequah Mine is unwarranted and only serves to delay the
process. My goal in introducing the resolution is to both
promote the environmentally responsible development of the
Tulsequah Chief Mine, but also to ask the Governor to remove
the state's request for IJC referral.
The permitting process that is being used for the mine is a
permitting process that is under Canadian-British Columbia
permitting jurisdiction. Mining permits in British Columbia
have been handled in the same way, through an environmental
assessment process that has been in place, for over 20 years.
And while it is true that there is a new mining law - or a new
law covering resource permits, or development permits - the
mining portion of the new law is the same sort of process ...
that has been in place for more than 20 years.
Under the process - that is similar to the one that they are
undertaking for the Tulsequah - are mining projects that have
been approved with potential transboundary impacts on Alaska,
such as the Snip, the Johnny Mountain Mine on the tributary of
the Stikine River, as well as the Eskay Creek Mine on the Unuk
near Ketchikan. All of those transboundary mining projects
went through the environmental assessment process that is in
place today, and none of those involved the International
Joint Commission.
The mine itself has already gone through extensive
environmental review, and will require more in-depth review
scrutiny prior to issuance of the detailed permits. They have
a process that is much like our phasing process for our oil
and gas leases. I would maintain that an ... IJC referral
doesn't really solve anything. The IJC simply makes
recommendations to the respective federal governments. The
experts that would be involved before the IJC are the same
experts that are already involved. This only serves to delay
the project, probably by at least two years, which causes
financial difficulties for the company that is trying to open
the mine, and makes it impossible for them to get their
financing. So, as you can see, Mr. Chairman, the real effort
is to stop the project and further the effort to designate the
watershed as wilderness. And there's been a lot of
information - misinformation, I mean - about the project and
about the facts of the process that has been followed to date.
Number 0661
We had extensive testimony on the Senate side, in the Senate
Resources Committee, particularly by both our DEC [Department
of Environmental Conservation] and the fish and game
department, all of whom said that ... every concern that ...
they had in November when they sent their last letter about
the project has been taken care of, in a manner in which they
believe it can be handled to everyone's satisfaction, by the
response that they've had from the British Columbia people,
who were actually here for the testimony.
So, the resolution does two things. It asks the Governor to
remove his request for an IJC referral. It also, furthermore,
states on the record that the legislature is supportive of an
environmentally responsible development, or redevelopment, of
the Tulsequah Chief Mine; and this is in a mining area where
mining was happening up until the 1950s.
The reason we have a time constraint, Mr. Chairman: The
meeting between Madeleine Albright of the Department of State
and her counterpart in Canada - whose name, I apologize, I
don't know off the top of my head - will be happening next
week. We would like to have a resolution passed by both
houses, to make sure that the State Department has it in hand
before that meeting.
Number 0806
REPRESENTATIVE BARNES asked whether Senator Pearce has had any
direct response from the Governor on SCR 7 since she introduced the
resolution.
SENATOR PEARCE replied, "Yes, in Valdez, when the Governor and I
were both there for the tenth anniversary meetings held by the
community college on the Exxon Valdez accident, the Governor asked
me what my intention was in having introduced the resolution. And
I explained to him that I thought that ... we, the state of Alaska,
should not be asking for an IJC referral on this particular mine.
And he said, 'Well, we believe we have good reasons why we're doing
so.' And I said, 'Fine, ... we'll be having an opportunity for the
people from the departments to come and say where they're at, what
seat at the table they have had on this mine, and so on and so
forth. I have not had further direct contact by the Governor's
office since that; and that was the Governor himself."
Number 0901
REPRESENTATIVE BARNES said she had brought it up because she had
written a letter to the Governor on February 25, telling him that
before she made any public statement she would like an explanation
from him. However, she had received no response. She noted that
her staff had just distributed to members a copy of her letter.
She said, "I think that the sooner that we pass this resolution,
the better off that we're all going to be."
Number 0992
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER stated that she is a supporter of mining,
which she believes is a valuable resource for employment, in both
Canada and Alaska. However, she wanted to hear the sponsor's reply
to the assertions that this compromises Alaskan fishermen for the
sake of Canadians.
SENATOR PEARCE responded:
Well, for Alaskan fishermen to be compromised for the sake of
any miners, one has to believe that the permitting process is
not thorough, and that the concerns that the state has put on
the table will not be met. I can say that, categorically,
when we had the testimony on the Senate side and had the
agency folks before us, they stated that each and every
concern that they had expressed to date, after three and a
half years of permitting process in the last 11 months of
at-the-table give-and-take, back and forth - and they said
that they were on the phone practically every day, back and
forth to one another on an agency-to-agency basis - they could
not identify any concern they had that they didn't think could
be handled through the permitting process. ...
The B.C. folks have expressed interest in dealing with each
and every one of our concerns, on an individual basis, because
they, too, are concerned. ... The fishing resource is shared
up and down our trans-borders, by both B.C. and Alaskans, ...
just as the Yukon [Territory] shares with us the resources of
the Yukon River. What happens downstream can affect the
fishermen on both sides, and what happens upstream can also do
so. But they have taken into account the concerns, including
where the tailings pond was going to be; they have moved the
actual location of that some number of miles, to an area that
was ... less environmentally sensitive, and also where they
were able to build a dam that can withhold a 10,000-year
flood. And ... they have been willing to adapt the permitting
process to every single concern that our folks put forward.
I won't speak for the Administration, but Mr. Conway [Michael
Conway, Director, Division of Air and Water Quality, DEC], in
his testimony at the Senate Resources Committee, in response
to a direct question by Senator Halford, said that he did not
see any concern that they had that couldn't be met through the
process, and that the B.C. folks had not said that they were
willing to work with us on.
In some respects, the Canadian permitting process, while
different from ours, is more stringent, in that after they
actually give their permit and then do their ongoing
permitting, on a kind of a phasing basis, they also have,
after the fact, authority where they can come back and pull a
permit without the sort of legal action that it takes in
Alaska for us to be able to do that. They have an oversight
process that is actually more stringent than ours.
But my primary point, if you'll let me digress just a little
bit, Representative Kapsner, is: We shouldn't be telling the
Canadians that they have to use our process, which early on is
what was happening; our agencies were saying, "Well, gee,
they're not permitting it the way we would; therefore, it
can't be good." Nor should we expect that ... the Canadians,
whether it be in the Yukon Territory, or British Columbia, or
any other of the provinces, be able to tell us that we should
model our permitting process after theirs, if it's another
transboundary development project.
Number 1278
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER asked what a 10,000-year flood is.
SENATOR PEARCE replied:
When you design dams or other facilities, you design for
either a 100-year flood or ... some basis, amount, that you
design for, that you can withstand. A 100-year flood on, say,
the Kuskokwim River, is what you would expect every hundred
years, the worst flood in a hundred year[s]. The basis that
they're using for their design on the holding dam for their
tailings pond is, to me, a 10,000-year flood. Quite frankly,
if you go back 10,000 years or go forward 10,000 years, you
probably run into an ice age before you run into the flood.
But ... it's an occurrence that would happen - expected to
happen - only once in every 10,000 years. That's an extreme
standard to have to meet.
Number 1347
CO-CHAIR OGAN referred to a concern raised at the previous House
Resources Standing Committee hearing on HCR 4, companion bill to
SCR 7. Someone had testified that the legislature doesn't
represent the Canadians, but rather the Alaskans who elected them.
Co-Chair Ogan asked Senator Pearce to put on the record why the
state has a compelling interest in helping to permit a Canadian
mine. He clarified that the testifier had questioned the
appropriateness of the legislature's dealing with this.
SENATOR PEARCE replied:
Well, if it's inappropriate for the legislature to be dealing
with it, then it should, by definition, be inappropriate for
the Administration to be dealing with it and asking for an IJC
referral. But I think that we have every right to be
concerned about ... any development that could have an adverse
effect on our resources. And we should always be ...
vigilant, just as the Canadians should be vigilant as we are
doing development, or as we should look to Eastern Siberia and
be vigilant, or all of the other areas where we work to help
with monitoring ... and other sorts of efforts, up and down
the coast.
Having said that, my concern here is that, in asking for an
IJC referral and clearly buying into a commission that says
itself, in its latest document talking about the twenty-first
century, the IJC, which is a non-elected body of bureaucrats,
say that they want to creatively expand their traditional role
and function. I find that troubling, because their creatively
expanding their role and function is going to mean they're
doing that to us, along our boundaries, because we do share a
very large portion of the boundary with Canada and the United
States. And so, I think this is another way to try to lock up
more lands in Alaska, and that concerns me greatly ....
I am absolutely convinced that sometime in my lifetime we are
going to be permitting exploration in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. I don't want an International Joint
Commission to decide they're going to set the permitting
process for that area, and I think we should be very concerned
about taking this precedent, which hasn't been done on any of
the other transboundary mines in Southeast Alaska. So, I'm
more concerned about the bigger picture and what happens in
the future, once we do this precedent.
I also, Mr. Chairman, as the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 308
when we passed it - which put the phasing permitting into
effect for the oil and gas industry in Alaska - believe that
that same sort of phasing process can work with mines. And
that's the kind of process that the B.C. folks have in place.
Number 1569
REPRESENTATIVE BARNES stated:
Not only ... was our Governor the person that asked ...,
through Madeleine Albright, that these folks intervene in this
mine, but we were asked, through a letter from the folks in
Canada, to please ask our Governor to back off; we were
specifically asked to come in and work with them on getting
this mine permitted. And I think not only is this resolution
appropriate for the legislature, but we deal on an
international level all the time because of our borders and of
our future. And so, ... I can't imagine why anyone would
think that we shouldn't be, especially when our Governor was
the one that caused it to happen to begin with.
Number 1640
SENATOR PEARCE said:
The deputy premier and the minister of mines - whose portfolio
is larger than just mining - for British Columbia is the
member of the assembly from Prince Rupert. The Prince Rupert
delegation at last year's Southeast Conference - and they've
now come to Juneau at least two years in a row to try to
develop a relationship with the Alaska legislature, so that on
a one-on-one basis, when we have concerns that cross our
state-to-provincial boundary, we feel comfortable picking up
the phone and calling the officials there, and they feel
comfortable calling us, rather than getting into the sorts of
stand-offs that we had with our ferry, when, frankly,
fishermen who weren't from Northern British Columbia came into
the blockade. ...
We haven't built the sort of relationship with British
Columbia that we do have with the Yukon, and I know that
Senator Phillips has been working to try to develop that sort
of relationship [that] gives us a better opportunity, on a
one-on-one basis, to deal with our concerns and our problems,
along with ... helping each other find solutions. And that's
what I think: We should just pick up the phone and call each
other, rather than to ask the State Department to do it for
us, because I don't think any decision made inside the Beltway
in Washington, D.C., will ever be the best decision for Alaska
in terms of developing our lands.
Number 1725
CO-CHAIR OGAN said he also believes the state has a compelling
interest to deal with this, and to work closely with the British
Columbia government. However, from the testimony during the
two-and-a-half-hour hearing on HCR 4, he believes the mine could do
a better job with public relations, which is a major portion of a
mining operation. The concerns of many people that Co-Chair Ogan
considers credible [raised to Redfern Resources prior to the
hearing] simply had not been responded to on this side of the
border. Co-Chair Ogan encouraged the mine operators to do a better
job of directly answering questions posed by Alaskan residents; he
noted, in defense of Redfern Resources, that Mr. Carmichael had had
to leave the March 26 hearing on HCR 4 to attend the hearing on SCR
7. He concluded by restating that the responses need to improve.
Number 1835
REPRESENTATIVE HARRIS referred to the committee packets on SCR 7,
which contained testimony from residents of Atlin, British
Columbia. [Packets contained a publication from Concerned Atlin
Residents for Economic Sustainability, with statements from several
Atlin residents in support the mine, as well as a letter from Bryan
Jack, who along with three other Atlin residents had spoken against
the mine at the March 26 hearing on HCR 4]. Representative Harris
said he doesn't know whom to believe, and maybe the mining company
is doing a better job of communicating to these people than the
legislature has been hearing.
CO-CHAIR OGAN suggested that is an internal affair within British
Columbia, which they need to work out internally, including the
road issues and the lawsuit with the First Nations, whereas the
legislature's problem is the IJC issue. He asked whether there
were further questions or comments. He restated that there had
been public testimony already [on HCR 4].
Number 1914
REPRESENTATIVE BARNES made a motion to move CSSCR 7(RES) out of
committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying
fiscal note; she asked unanimous consent. There being no
objection, CSSCR 7(RES) moved from the House Resources Standing
Committee.
ADJOURNMENT
Number 1926
There being no further business before the committee, the House
Resources Standing Committee meeting was adjourned at 1:38 p.m.
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