Regulators hear concerns about proposed Graphite One mine

Dust, spoilage of a pristine subsistence area, skepticism of baseline studies assertions and testimony of deep connections to the land proposed to be turned into a graphite mine dominated public comments during a meeting hosted by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Old St. Joe’s on Monday evening, regarding the proposed Graphite One mine in the Kigluaik Mountain range.
Graphite One Inc., a Canadian-registered company with an Alaska subsidiary, is an exploration company that proposes to build and operate a year-round open pit graphite mine at Graphite Creek. In this remote area, used by subsistence hunters and gatherers of Nome, Teller and Brevig Mission, the company proposes to develop a 1.1-mile-long pit, a mill complex, a waste management facility and water treatment ponds on an entire footprint of over 1,176 acres, of which according to the Corps, over 380 acres of waters of the United States would be permanently impacted.
To access the remote site, the company proposes to have a 17.3-mile-long access road built through Mosquito Pass, and to have the state of Alaska cap and re-engineer 30 miles of the Kougarok Road to withstand the projected trailer-truck traffic that would haul the concentrate nearly 50 miles from the mine to the Port of Nome to be shipped to a secondary facility in Ohio. According to Chief Operating Officer Mike Schaffner, the traffic would encompass 12 double trailer-trucks making 24 round trips each day. If they have to run single trucks with 20-ft. containers, the number of passes would rise up to 55 round trips per day, plus busses taking workers to and from the mine and other supply vehicles such as fuel trucks.
The plan is to mine 10,000 tons of material per day, making for an annual output of 175,000 tons of graphite concentrate per year, which would be contained in 20-ft. shipping conexes. The company estimates they need 8,600 shipping containers to store the graphite concentrate and ship it out during the ice-free season from the port of Nome.

The regulators
According to the Corps’ Project Manager Greg Mazer, the goal was to inform the public about ongoing and upcoming federal and state permit processes and provide an opportunity for the public to voice their concerns and ask questions. “The community feedback will help the USACE-Alaska District team better understand public sentiments, which is necessary to conduct the public-interest review and the environmental assessment under NEPA, as required by regulation,” Mazer told the Nugget in an email prior to the event.
In addition to Mazer, several state regulators with the Departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Conservation, the State Historic Preservation office and Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game were present, gave overviews of their jurisdictions and permitting authorities.
Present from Graphite One were Chief Operating Officer Mike Schaffner, Vice President of Operations Kevin Torpy Sr, Environmental and Permitting Manager Ed Fogels, a former DNR employee, Project Manager Loren Prosser and consultant Simon Wigren.
As regulators spelled out their jurisdictional authorities in regulator jargon, the public had broader questions in mind that did not neatly fit into the bureaucratic constraints of rules and regulations.
The main authority for the Corps lies with Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act. While the Corps’ task is “to protect the nation’s aquatic resources and navigable capacity while allowing reasonable development through fair, flexible and balanced permit decisions,” most comments were tied to the quality of life of those who revere the Kigluaiks for hunting, harvesting, recreational, spiritual and ancestral reasons.
Mazer stated that the Corps reviews the project, expecting to produce an Environmental Assessment document, as opposed to a more comprehensive Environmental Impact Study. He added that it is possible that the Environmental Assessment would lead to the necessity to produce an EIS. He mentioned other legal requirements of consulting with other federal agencies and tribal government-to-government consultations.
Mazer said that during a recent public comment period on the 404 permit – which would permit the discharge of dredged and fill material into the waters of the United States — the Corps received 301 comments, of which 56.8 percent voiced concern, 26.6 percent were outright opposed to the project and 16.6 percent supported the project.
The Native Villages of Teller and Brevig Mission requested high-level consultations with the Alaska District Army Corps of Engineers.
Mazer said, the Corps aims to finish the Environmental Assessment by September 16. If they find no significant impact, this may lead to permit issuance, he said. If there is a significant impact finding, the Corps would require the preparation of an EIS.
The state on the other hand will have to issue a host of permits as well. The Dept. of Environmental Conservation would have to issue permits dealing with air quality – this project would need a dust mitigation permit, as well as the management of water. It is a common problem with mines in Alaska, that vast amounts of precipitation transport mine waste and solids off the site, so mines need a solid plan in place to contain the waste and to avoid acid rock drainage.
The Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, represented by Audra Brase, focused on the project’s impact on fish.

Public comments
And then it was time for public comments and people came prepared.
Comments from the audience went on the record demanding an EIS, given the intrusive scope of the project.
Austin Ahmasuk commented that at the time of the public comment period, the only information available to the public was the company’s feasibility study. The recently released Environmental Evaluation Document, also prepared by Graphite One to assist the Corps with the Environmental Assessment, contained new information that would have been useful to know when the public comment period was underway. “And so it seems like this entire public process has outpaced community involvement,” Ahmasuk said. “Folks in this region are really feeling it. I think that’s why two of the communities have asked Graphite One not to participate in their community meetings, because they feel like this whole entire process has outpaced the level of community involvement that we expect in this region.” He added that the public comment period was not announced in the Nome Nugget, the paper of record. “Do you see that as a defensible public process?” Ahmasuk asked. Mazer responded that the Corps had enough information to initiate the permit process and to issue the public notice. More than 100 comments asked for public hearings. “What we’re doing right now is essentially an informal version of the public hearing,” he said.
Others spoke to the meaning the Kigluaiks hold to them.
Emily Murray referred to graphite mines in Madagascar, Mozambique and China, all sources of severe air and water contamination. She addressed the age-old conflict of outsiders coming to ancestral lands to extract a resource while locals are left trying to defend their livelihoods. She spoke of her grandchildren. “They are the ones that are going to be living in that area where the graphite one mining is going to be,” she said. “I’d like to know if the area will be left for them to continue their livelihood of subsistence. Will they still be able to do that?”
She addressed the difference of perspective, the “big terminology” used in state and federal presentations. “Try to understand that the land that you are going to mine there, that is where we get our food.” She explained to the urban visitors that  rural Alaskans are characterized as “economically disadvantaged,” a term she rejected, as riches come in different currency in bush Alaska. “That’s the terminology that I have seen over and over and over again about Native people, that we are economically disadvantaged. In your eyes we may be, but we have a subsistence economy with a cash overlay. So, when we look at our land and we see the good fish in the good water, we are not economically disadvantaged. We are very rich people.”
Her fear is that this may change when clean water is sullied, and fish and game crowded out of their habitat. Where does that leave the people who live here?
A high school senior wanted to know what the benefits of this project would be. “Are any of our communities seeing benefits from this project?”  Mazer said, this would be answered by the end of the public review but he could see employment benefits during construction and operation of the mine.
Others expressed fear of losing a recreational paradise and of a road that may forever change the quality of life of those living near it due to uncontrollable dust.
Anahma Shannon told the regulators, yes, this is an emotional issue for those living here.
“Those of us who’ve been to Mosquito Pass, flown through Mosquito pass, hiked through there, and have spent time there, it’s not just the fact that you’re going to put a road through there, but that we’re not going to be able to ever access that area again. We are not allowed on the access road, and we’re not allowed in the footprint of the mine, not that we’d want to be there, but we will not ever be able to have those places again.” She also honed in on the amount of traffic that will increase on the Kougarok Road, asking if the company is conducting air quality baseline studies along the road. Answer: none. Torpy said the company has a meteorological station at Graphite Creek and they are measuring ambient air quality near Moonlight Springs, which is nowhere near the Kougarok Road, to feed a model which will inform the permit application to the state. Shannon retorted that she demands testing be done along the Kougarok Road. “It feels really irresponsible to have zero testing along our road when you’re going to be doing 50 passes a day, and I live along the road. A lot of people here live along the road, and we’re not going to be able to walk our dogs. We’re not going to be able to go on a run. Those of us who live close to the road… I can’t even imagine how coated our houses are going to be on the inside with dust.”
Torpy conceded that there will be an increase in traffic, and asserted that the state would commit to road improvements. “The state has provided a number of improvements that they see needing to the road, not the least of which is capping the entire thing, which will have a huge impact on cutting down dust,” Torpy said. If you drive that road, it’s in no condition to be running dump trucks steadily on and for us to be able to do that reliably, we’re going to need a road base on there.” He added that they are committed to dust suppression, whether it be water trucks or calcium chloride. “So I would say, don’t expect status quo of zero, almost zero, dust control throughout the summer on that road when Graphite One’s operating on it, because that’s not how we operate.”
Another high school senior present wanted to know what kind of vegetation would be planted on the tailings pile, vegetation that is present or will they just throw grass on there and call it good?
Graphite One responded that they would revegetate the mine with plants that were there before. However, Mazer interjected and stated that in his experience, the first plants planted are often grasses to stabilize the soil and native shrubs. “It starts the successional process, which then eventually could lead to reestablishment of what had been there previously, but it will take many decades, if not longer, to get it back to how it actually was. So that does need to be recognized,” he said.
Kristine McRae questioned the optics of the regulators and Graphite One appearing in lock-step. She said it feels like a done deal. “It feels like ‘We’re just telling you guys how we’re making it happen,’” she said, adding that regulators seem to rely on applicant studies in their permit deliberations. Mazer said that the studies done by Graphite One are up to standard and that the regulators don’t commission independent studies. “We don’t have the money and the means to make that happen, so we are reliant upon the applicants to provide good information, and the public essentially is reliant upon regulatory agencies to have the capacity and the time to discern whether or not that information is good,” Mazer said.
However, comments about the lack of air quality data laid bare the data gaps, as did comments on the lack of baseline studies of game and human passage in the area.
A commenter brought up the lack of data or baseline studies on human or game passage through Mosquito Pass and the area of the mine. “We don’t know how many groups travel through there. We don’t know how many wolverines travel through there. We don’t know how many vermin are in that valley. There’s no baseline data. So, you’re going to permit something that you don’t even have a baseline for,” a commenter said, addressing the Fish and Game representative.
A high school student asked the pointed question of how the FAST-41 permitting process is affecting the timeline of the permitting process. Mazer responded, yes, it does have effects. “We were compelled to prepare a projected permitting timeline as a result of it having the special FAST-41 status, and that is part of the reason why the Corps of Engineers is continuing to review the project as an environmental assessment,” Mazer said.
Other questions were raised dealing whether or not some streams were too acidic to allow for fish, what the protocol would be if during construction or mining human remains would be found and how permafrost would be affected by the building of the mine and mill complex.
The Corps and the state representatives traveled to Teller for a meeting on Tuesday and to Brevig Mission on Wednesday. The tribes asked for Graphite One to not be present at those meetings.

Note from the Editor: This article contains a correction from the previously printed and posted version. The correction is that the mine projects to produce 10,000 tons of material per day, not 100,000 tons.