Advocates, regulators see ‘greening’ of mining operations

KYLE VON BOSE

February 22, 2008 at 12:01PM AKST

The proposed Pebble Mine near Lake Iliamna in the Bristol Bay watershed has been the source of controversy, uncertainty and fear.

Anti-mining groups such as the Renewable Resources Coalition maintain that a mine of Pebble’s magnitude would unleash a "toxic soup" into the bay, destroying a fishery that brings in more than $300 million annually and leaving behind a poisonous crater.

On the other side is the Pebble Limited Partnership, a 50-50 venture between London-based Anglo American PLC and Vancouver, Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.

The companies have pledged to develop the Pebble Project in a way that will provide long-term benefits for local communities while protecting the environment and traditional ways of life.

The public has been flooded with information from both parties. Both claim to have scientific evidence to prove their case.

Anti-mining groups have run advertisements featuring anecdotal evidence pointing to mining pollution, accompanied with photographs of mining disaster sites from years past. However, industry representatives along with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources claim that in the past two decades, mining has evolved new technology and techniques sensitive to environmental protection.

Ultimately state and federal officials will either give developers the green light or send them packing.

Lessons learned

John Groom, Anglo American’s head of safety, health and environment, thinks that if anything, failed mining projects of the past have lead to cleaner operations and have shown the international mining community what not to do.

Groom is active in the international mining industries’ efforts towards promoting a better understanding of sustainable development. He travels internationally, attending panels and giving presentations on the importance of ethical engineering and the understanding that modern mining operations must be committed to the intelligent use of environmental resources and the active stewardship of land and biodiversity.

Groom said that all mining has changed fundamentally in the last 20 years.

"The principles that are applied are that we can take a resource in the ground, turn it into benefit and value for the region and the community and clearly the company.

"But (we) do it in a way that does not damage the environment (and) has a short term impact – of course, because we are there – but benefits the communities," he said.

Tom Crafford, mining coordinator for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, has also witnessed this shift in the mining industry. Crafford is a geologist by trade who came to Alaska in 1974. He worked as a geologist in the minerals industry and as a consultant before going to work for the state three years ago. Crafford helps coordinate the permitting processes for mines across the state of Alaska.

"In the last 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in the awareness surrounding the issues of mine waste," Crafford said. "When I first came into the business it wasn’t a concern. It wasn’t understood; the science wasn’t there."

Crafford said there has been a huge shift in not only corporate responsibility but also the legal standards for that responsibility. Today’s mines are required to have the financial assurances in place to handle every conceivable mishap that would require cleanup or rectification.

One of the points that we try to drive home as permitters and regulators as we start considering projects, is that they need to be designed for closure, and that is a big change," Crafford said.

Mining companies can’t cut and run if something goes wrong; a fear that Crafford hears often from the public. The resources to clean up or recover a mine site, if needs be, are secured before construction and operation.

Renewable Resources Coalition spokesman Art Hackney does not think mining companies can be trusted. He said that because mining operations have broken promises in the past, they couldn’t be trusted.

"Doesn’t it seem reasonable that you would look at every other place where they have promised things and say, ‘Do they tend to keep their promises?’ The fact is they don’t," Hackney said. "So why are we supposed to suddenly believe that all of this stuff that sounds good to us now?"

Targeting permits

Anti-mining groups target the processes by which mining companies apply for and are awarded permits in Alaska. Hackney likens the process to putting the cart before the horse. He said that mining companies in Alaska want to get a permit before they start saying how they are going to go about their operations.

According to Tom Crafford, this simply isn’t true.

Mines as large as Pebble almost always require either a wastewater discharge permit from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or a dredge fill permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Both permits trigger compliance requirements set forth by the National Environmental Policy Act, signed into law in 1970.

Environmental baseline studies characterize what conditions on site are prior to development activity. Surface water, groundwater, hydrology and geochemistry are studied in great depth.

"Environmental baselines studies typically need three-plus years, and when I’m saying that, I’m talking about even before you start the (environmental impact statement) process," Crafford said. "Pebble has done four years of baseline studies already."

When the NEPA process is triggered, it requires both environmental baseline studies and a federal environmental impact statement.

Crafford, who has been traveling around Alaska with a presentation designed to educate Alaskans about the process of approving mine projects, said there is a real lack of understanding among the public about what an environmental impact statement actually is.

The statement is a tool that federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency or the Army Corps of Engineers, can use to look at the potential impact of a project by evaluating a company’s vision for development.

Simply put, it is a cost-benefit analysis of potential environmental impact.

"A-full blown EIS is probably going to be a minimum of a three-year process," Crafford said.

The EIS also requires the applicant to produce a range of alternatives, such as how else the project could be developed and what the comparable environmental impacts would be.

"When a project is proposed, an applicant always has some vision of the approach, but that is not necessarily what they get to do," Crafford said. "The (environmental impact statement) requires them to look at alternatives, including a no-action alternative, meaning the project doesn’t happen."

The statement is submitted twice before approval – once as a draft and then again as a final copy. Each submission is open to public comment. The draft receives a 60-day public comment period, and the final copy is given another 30 days of public comment before the federal agency makes any final decisions.

Crafford points out that NEPA process and the environmental impact statement are just a small portion of the process to get permitted.

‘A whole bag of permits’

"A point that we try to make repeatedly is that it’s not like any one entity has veto power over everyone else, there is no one permit that is required," Crafford said. "It is a whole bag of permits, and the number will vary from project to project, but it’s typically around 50 to 60 permits or more."

Federal agencies have neither the manpower nor the funds to do what can amount to six years or more of environmental and feasibility studies. Since mining companies produce their own science, Crafford hears some critics say that they cannot be trusted.

"People argue that ‘oh those studies are tainted’ because they are paid for and conducted by the company, but man the companies have to put big dollars into those studies. They are spending enormous amounts of money on exploration," Crafford said. "The last thing in the world they want is to get to a point where they are ready to go into permitting and the agencies say their studies are inadequate."

That’s as much as six years of studies that mining companies don’t want to have to go back and redo, Crafford says.

Crafford said that to collect valid and complete science, there is a lot of consultation between the agencies and the applicants about methodologies during the application process.

Patty McGrath, > mining coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 10, told an audience at the Alaska Forum on the Environment on Feb. 12 that the Pebble Partnership has been seeking a lot of EPA involvement in its regulating and permit process.

Once completed, state and federal agencies both look at the studies and critically review all baseline studies and the environmental impact statement.

"There are projects that have been told, ‘You have got to go back and get more data,’ and that is painful for a company," Crafford said. "It’s truly in the mining company’s best interest, as well as the public’s, for studies to be done well."

Factoring in penalties

Hackney said that in some cases, mines agree to the terms of their permits but then turn around and ignore them, factoring in penalties and fines into their operational costs.

"If you look at other mines, they all do what they said they weren’t going to do," Hackney said. "Mines say they don’t need a discharge permit, because they say they aren’t going to have discharge. Then they get fined and they pay the fine."

Hackney said repercussions for mining a company’s noncompliance is never high enough to deter or repair potential pollution. He said Alaska’s current permit process wouldn’t even hold the Pebble Project accountable monetarily in the case of a disaster.

Pebble Partnership spokesman Sean Mcgee said that if one looks at any type of industrial operation one will see issues of non-compliance, but that doesn’t always equal pollution or environmental harm.

"I don’t think anyone plans for non-compliance and I don’t consider it a cost of doing business," Mcgee said. "In our case we have 100 percent compliance with all our exploration permits and have regular enforcement on them."

Army Corps of Engineers Project Manager Serena Sweet > addressed this issue at the Alaska Forum on the Environment on Feb. 12.

She said that if a company is found to be polluting, the Corps doesn’t just fine it –in addition, a company would be required to clean up any pollution and restore the site to its pre-existing environmental condition.

Crafford said that a lot of work goes into estimating the costs of reclaiming a mine site. He said the money would already be set aside in case the state has to step in and take over the reclamation project. While mining companies do submit their own estimates, they are closely audited by state and federal agencies for accuracy.

"The process of coming up with a value for that is not something sketched on an envelope or even a number proposed by the company," Crafford said. "The idea is that if the company goes bankrupt at any point and time, there would be enough financial insurance in place to restore the site, reclaim it to a physically and chemically stable condition."

Kyle von Bose can be reached at (907) 348-2438 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.

Next: Regulators describe the evolving science of mining and reclamation and what the law requires of mine operators.