Interior Alaska News

JUNEAU, ALASKA – U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan (both R-Alaska) and Representative Mary Sattler Peltola (D-Alaska) this week sent a letter to President Joe Biden expressing their continued concern over transboundary mining in British Columbia (B.C.) just upstream of several Southeast Alaska rivers. The delegation has repeatedly urged the Biden administration to help protect Alaska’s communities and marine resources from potential impacts and renewed their call for action after the recent heap leach pad failure at the Eagle Gold Mine in the Yukon.

Excerpts from the Delegation’s Letter:

“Under three different presidents, our delegation has pushed for the Department of State to secure binding protections and financial assurances for the transboundary Taku, Stikine, and Unuk rivers that flow from B.C. into Southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest. Without unified action from the executive branch, Canadian mining activity in this region will increasingly endanger U.S. communities and resources, such as salmon, without any mechanism for recourse or compensation.”

“We realize that the copper and critical minerals that come from Canadian mines are a key part of U.S. and allied national security and an important part of resource development. However, there is no need to sacrifice environmental protections in order to safeguard our security and power our communities.”

“Eagle Mine has only been operating for five years, and by all indications the heap pad leach failure was caused by poor design and negligence. We are now only beginning to understand the true scale of the environmental impacts, and each update is more discouraging than the last.”

“We request the administration publicly and immediately support two calls for action: 1) Canada cleans up its abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine, which has been polluting international waters for more than 66 years; and 2) Canada, the U.S. government, the transboundary U.S. states and Canadian provinces/territories, Indigenous groups, and communities establish an international framework to prevent and resolve disputes in these transboundary waters, most likely under the International Joint Commission (IJC) and the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.”

The full text of the letter is available here.

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