CdA company one step closer to gold mine

An Alaskan gold mine proposed by a local company is one permit closer to being built.

Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. received a federal permit this week that authorizes construction of a tailings facility, mill and other improvements for the proposed Kensington mine, located about 45 air miles north of Juneau.

The permit represents a significant milestone in the regulatory process, said Heather Turner, Coeur d’Alene Mines spokeswoman.

“We’re almost there,” Turner said in an e-mail. “…We are on-track and we have done everything required of us by the agencies.”

Just one more permit – a federal wastewater discharge permit – stands between the company and the beginning of mine construction. Turner said the company expects to receive the discharge permit next week and hopes to start construction July 1.

The Kensington Mine would employ 300 people during construction, and about 225 during the life of the mine. But controversy has erupted over its location near Berners Bay, a rich marine ecosystem that’s home to sea lions, seals, humpback whales, four species of salmon, and the last stronghold of Pacific herring in the Juneau area.

Environmentalists are also critical of the company’s plans for disposing of tailings, the crushed rock remaining after the gold is extracted. The permit issued this week allows the company to deposit the tailings in a 20-acre, natural lake in the Tongass National Forest.

“This decision blatantly contradicts the Clean Water Act’s fundamental purpose, which is to prevent America’s lakes, streams and rivers from being turned into toxic waste dumps,” said Earthworks staff member Bonne Gestring in a press release. The Washington, D.C.-based group was formerly known as the Mineral Policy Center.

Company officials dispute Gestring’s comments. The tailings will change the size of the lake, making it larger and shallower, but it will still support a fish population, said Rick Richins, Kensington’s project manager, in an earlier interview.