Donlin Gold project update: corps begins work on final EIS.

• Author: Resz, Heather A.
• Position: MINING

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The final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Record of Decision for Donlin Gold LLC's proposed mine are expected to be released in 2017, according to the US Army Corps of Engineers-Alaska District, the federal agency in charge of preparing the document.

Sheila Newman, chief of the Special Actions Branch for the Regulatory Division for the Alaska Corps of Engineers, says her staff are beginning to review the more than six hundred comments received on the draft EIS. The extended deadline ended May 31.

Located 277 miles west of Anchorage and 10 miles north of the village of Crooked Creek in remote Southwest Alaska, the proposed Donlin Gold mine has proven and probable gold reserves estimated at 30.4 million ounces--1,040 tons--of gold, according to the draft EIS.

Under Donlin's preferred plan, described as Alternative 2 in the draft EIS, construction would take three to four years and cost $6.7 billion. The project would employ up to 3,000 people during construction with an annual payroll of $375 million, according to the draft EIS.

Donlin Gold says the project would have an annual operating budget of $7.1 million and would employ between 800 and 1,200 people for about 27.5 years.

The ongoing exploration and permitting phases of the project, which began in 1995, have employed as many as 240 people--mostly Alaska Native corporation shareholders.

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The project has three major components: the mine, transportation infrastructure, and a 315-mile natural gas pipeline to provide fuel for the mine's power plant, according to the draft EIS. The company says the total acreage of the three is sixteen thousand acres.

At the end of operations, Donlin says, the 2.2 miles long, 1 mile wide, and 1,850-foot deep mine pit, its associated 2,350-acre tailings storage facility, and a 2,300-acre waste rock facility would be reclaimed.

A wastewater plant at the site would operate for an indefinite period after the mine closes to clean contaminated water in the pit lake before its release into the Crooked Creek watershed.

'It's their land. It's their gold'

Residents up and down the river here are shareholders in two Alaska Native corporations that own the surface and subsurface land rights that contain the proposed Donlin Gold mine--the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1972 transferred the surface and sub-surface rights to The Kuskokwim Corporation and Calista Corporation, respectively. The Donlin prospect is...