SB 123-ALASKA MINING DAY  3:53:54 PM CO-CHAIR PASKVAN announced the consideration of SB 123. SENATOR CATHY GIESSEL, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor of SB 123, said the bill establishes May 10 every year as Alaska Mining Day. It recognizes the role of development of mineral resources and that role in Alaska's history and growth - and its future. She said the sponsor statement reviews that history and that mining today continues to be a source of jobs and economic impact in communities where mining has been going on for more than a century. For example, Fort Knox in Fairbanks purchases its power for Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) and because of the impact of that power purchase it lowers the cost of electricity for the consumers in Fairbanks by $.1 a kilowatt hour. Livengood also might have a mine in the future and they are also planning to purchase power from GVEA, which would provide another significant impact for the Fairbanks ratepayers. She said Nome is having quite a mining boom with gold being found under the water on the beach. A couple of days ago, she talked to the representative from Nome who has a one bedroom house he posted for rent. Within 24 hours he had more than 30 hits, because last year they ran out of housing. This mining activity is having quite an impact economically on the community of Nome. Juneau, which is named for Joe Juneau, had three very robust mines build up the community. Today, some of the tunnels are being used to store water for emergency fire response. In 2010, 100 private sector jobs were created in the Juneau area at the Kensington Mine. The average wage in mining is $95,000 a year. In fact, the largest private sector employer is the Greens Creek Mine. So mining is having quite a significant economic impact in Juneau. She reviewed the contents of their SB 123 packets that included a new update from Dr. Scott Goldsmith, dated March 2012, on the structural analysis of the Alaska Economy Mining Section. She thanked the chair and Senator Wagoner for signing on as co- sponsors of the bill. 3:58:08 PM SENATOR STEDMAN said he thought having a designated day was a good idea, but one of the most infamous mines, Rodman Bay Mine, was left off as was the Chichagof Mine in Southeast. SENATOR GIESSEL thanked him and remarked that Bokan Mountain contains rare earth elements and they are looking for quite a robust development there, which will impact Southeast. 3:59:18 PM FRED PARADY, Executive Director, Alaska Miners Association, Anchorage, AK, supported for SB 123. He said his organization is a nonprofit organization established in 1939 to represent the mining industry in Alaska. It is composed of more than 1,400 individual prospectors, geologists, engineers, vendors, suction dredge miners, small family mines, junior mining companies and major mining companies. Throughout the state they produce gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, lead, zinc, copper, coal, limestone, sand, gravel, crushed rock, armor rock and other material and the members live and work throughout the state in each of their districts. MR. PARADY said the anniversary of the General Mining Act of the United States is May 10, making it an appropriate date for celebrating mining. He explained that minerals are not discovered in a vacuum; they are a product a particular technical knowledge and skill coupled with tenacity and risk taking. These minerals were essentially the primary drivers of Alaska's early economic development and cities such and Fairbanks, Juneau and Nome were founded on mining and today the same sort of cities - Fairbanks, Juneau, Kotzebue and Anchorage - are reliant on the products of mining and the prosperity it brings to the Alaskan economy. MR. PARADY said mining is also a key driver to further development of infrastructure across the state, but what he really wanted to focus on was the workforce it would create. The recent McDowell report estimated the creation of 4,500 direct jobs with a new average wage of $100,000. He asked them to replace their mental image of a miner with a sledge hammer to one of a miner at the controls of multimillion dollar highly computerized piece of equipment that is producing the resources from the earth that everyone relies on. Miners today are highly skilled; they have to be knowledgeable about high pressure hydraulics, high voltage electronics, rock mechanics, instrumentation and controls. MR. PARRADY said Alaska has seven operating mines: Usibelli Coal Mine, Greens Creek, Red Dog, Fort Knox, Pogo, Kensington and Nixon Fork, and substantial projects are moving their way through exploration including Chuitna, Wishbone Hill, Donlin Gold, Livengood, Niblack and Pebble. There were 60 exploration projects last year that spent more than $100,000 and 30 more projects spending more than $1 million. This is the leading edge of the next generation of mining in Alaska - the exploration phase. He concluded with a quote from President Abe Lincoln in a letter to miners meeting in Denver at the Western Association of Miners. It was on April 14, 1865. His message was: Tell the miners from me that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability, because their prosperity is the prosperity of the nation, and we shall prove in a very few years that we are indeed the treasury of the world. 4:03:39 PM SENATOR STEVENS noted that Koniaq Corporation is opening a very large granite quarry on Kodiak Island and asked if he considered that mining. MR. PARADY said yes and apologized for omitting that mine from his list. He added that one of the hidden stories of mining in modern day Alaska is that the Native Corporations benefit from the mining industry activity through 7(i) and 7(j) royalty sharing payments, which amounted to $82 million last year for Red Dog. Koniaq is in the same vein. MR. PARADY said that modern mining techniques bring the ability to meet modern environmental standards, because you are generating wealth and are able to do good work. CO-CHAIR PASKVAN held SB 123 in committee.