By: Dorothy Kosich, Mineweb
14-JUL-06

RENO–(Mineweb.com) Environmental NGOs have organized a letter-writing campaign, critical of the World Gold Council’s decision to accept Idaho-based gold and silver miner Coeur d’Alene Mines for membership of the organization.

Coeur Vice President Scott Lamb said Thursday that the letter writers are apparently “misguided” or “misinformed” regarding Coeur’s plan to dispose of Kensington Mine tailings into Lower Slate Lake, an Alaskan freshwater lake.

In a joint news release issued Thursday by the environmental NGOs Earthworks and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and the human rights group Oxfam America, the organizations said they are not opposed to the gold mine itself, “but to the way it wants to dispose its waste.”

“Dumping waste into a lake for the sake of greater profit is exactly the type of irresponsible behavior that ethical consumers and jewelers oppose,” said Radhika Sarin, Earthworks International Campaign. In a letter-writing campaign, that, so far, has generated 1,500 letters to the World Gold Council (WGC). The group questioned the council’s decision to include Coeur in its membership ranks.

“Critics argue that allowing lake dumping at Kensington would open the door for other mines across Alaska to do the same, threatening traditional fishing and gathering by Alaskan natives and destroying the clean water and fisheries that provide income and livelihoods to thousands of Alaskans,” according to the joint news release.

WGC Representatives had not responded to Mineweb’s request for comment by deadline Thursday night.

Meanwhile, Coeur’s Lamb told Mineweb Thursday that the mine and its freshwater tailings disposal plan have been approved by both state and federal agencies, among 60 permits granted to the Kensington project. He declared that Kensington is “fully compliant with the U.S. Clean Water Act.”

Lamb explained that the underground gold operation will not use cyanide leaching processes, instead, relying on flotation. He added that 40% of the tailings generated by the operation will be placed back into the mining area to use as backfill.

The tailings are “inert,” Lamb said. He explained that Kensington will not generate acid drainage, mainly because of the geology of its orebody. The deposit is contained within an carbonate ore body, which acts to neutralize any acid. Lamb said that any pyrite in the ore will not remain in the mine tailings, and, instead, be processed into the concentrate. As a result, the crushed ore to be disposed of in the freshwater lake will be of “a similar composition and content to sand on a beach,” Lamb claimed.

Nevertheless, several Bristol Bay, Alaska, native corporations are nervous about Kensington’s possible impacts on fisheries. A recently issued joint resolution of seven Alaska native associations supported a federal lawsuit by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC) challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to permit the freshwater tailings disposal method at Kensington. The litigation claims that the practice violates the Federal Clean Water Act.

The Kensington lawsuit is viewed as a possible precedent for freshwater mine tailings disposal methods, both in Alaska and the United States. The practice has been discouraged since the enactment of the Clean Water Act.

If the Kensington permits are found to be illegal, Alaska state officials are worried that it may become more difficult to develop new hardrock mines in Alaska

An Anchorage-based federal judge is expected to issue a decision on the lawsuit this summer.

In a recent letter to a Juneau newspaper, State Assemblyman Merrill Sanford accused the SEACC of “cooking up a handful of inaccurate and misleading statements in an attempt to suggest that Coeur Alaska’s Kensington mine poses a threat to the state’s water quality.” He accused the NGO of using the Kensington issue to stop the development of Alaskan mines.

Miners, environmental NGOs, native groups and ordinary Alaskans believe the Kensington decision could impact the development of potentially massive Northern Dynasty Pebble gold/copper project, planned for Bristol Bay, a popular sport fishery area. Kensington is located near Berners’ Bay.