Mining and Environmental Remediation.

• Author: STRICKER, JULIE

Despite an EPA report that states hard-rock mines in Alaska emit high levels of toxic wastes, mine managers are saying mining in Alaska is a environmentally friendly.

The early afternoon sunshine glints off the blue waters of a reservoir surrounded by forested hills clothed with autumn's golden leaves. Moose, bear, wolves and waterfowl move through the area. The waters teem with grayling and burbot. Wilderness-loving loons nest in a quiet cove.

Just a few hundred yards up the valley from this idyllic scene is the Interior's largest hard-rock gold mine, Fort Knox. At ground zero, a growling Caterpillar wheel-loader bites chunks of gold speckled rock from the walls of a 600-foot-deep pit, dumping the ore into huge trucks that roar up the muddy road to a crushing mill. From there, the ore is shuttled up a conveyer belt to the processing mill, where it is ground and pounded, sluiced, stirred and treated with caustic chemicals until a few ounces of gold are separated from the tons of rock. The waste rock-now the consistency of flour-is dumped into a tailings impoundment.

The two pictures of Fort Knox--one side a subarctic preserve, the other an industrial monolith--are strikingly different. But the two are intricately connected. The waters of the reservoir are used in gold production and the wildlife flourishes in an area carefully monitored and controlled by the mine's environmental overseers.

Fort Knox is proud of its environmental record. It and other large hard-rock operations in Alaska are operating under strict permits from a variety of state and federal agencies to ensure the water stays clean. And the land welcoming to wildlife.

A report released by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in spring 2000 painted a different and unwelcome picture of hard-rock mining in Alaska. For the first time, the EPA included hard-rock mines in the 11year-old annual Toxic Release Inventory, which tracks toxic emissions from chemical plants and other industries.

With the inclusion of mining, Alaska became the state with the fourth-highest toxic emissions in the country--ranking it above the former fourth-place leader, Texas. The top three states on the list, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, are also mining leaders. Although Fort Knox was not mentioned in the report, two other Alaska mines, the Red Dog zinc and lead mine in Northwest Alaska and the Greens Creek silver and zinc mine near Juneau, were prominently listed.

According to the report, Alaska...