Mining and the environment.

• Author: Baker, Allen
• Position: Alaska

Environmental regulations make mining an uphill battle. Developers who work at communicating with agencies and the public may find it easier to overcome the challenges of building a mine today.

Alaska has gold in them thar hills, no doubt about it. But these days, if you want to mine that gold, you're going to have to put them thar hills back after you're done. It's part of the deal, it can be costly, and it will probably delay production for a minimum of two years.

That's if things go smoothly, as they did at Fort Knox Mine near Fairbanks.

"Anymore, when you look at a mining project, you look not only at the amount of ore there, but the amount of money you'll have to spend on closure," says Bill Jeffress, chief of environmental services for Fort Knox, a project of Amax Gold Inc. "One of the initial things that Amax Gold did - we analyzed the site not only for the gold deposits, but for the environment."

Jim Johnson, with Northern Testing Labs in Fairbanks, agrees. He says Amax started early and did baseline environmental work early on. That provided a good data base for its environmental studies.

But most important, environmental considerations were part of the whole process.

"They have competent, knowledgeable people on staff who are working on environmental issues with the project," Johnson says. "It's not an afterthought."

Many people involved in the Fort Knox permit process say the company's willingness to sit down and talk over environmental objections smoothed the way for the quarter-billion-dollar project, scheduled to start production late in 1996.

The mine has proven and probable reserves of more than 4 million ounces of gold, which will take the company 12 years to mine and 16 years to mill, Jeffress says.

"We went out of our way to keep them (the public) in the communications loop and address their concerns," says Jeffress. "We were very fortunate to be dealing with really reasonable people on it. We were surprised on the last public comment period on the federal side, specifically on reclamation and closure, there weren't any comments from the environmental folks."

Even David Chambers, mining analyst for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund in Juneau, agrees that Amax Gold had a cooperative approach.

"I found those guys to be willing to talk," Chambers says. "There are some companies that won't talk with you. That is a formula for disaster. You have to have dialogue.

"We didn't always see eye to eye with Amax, but I view Amax as a relatively environmentally sensitive company. We may have some disagreements over what needs to be done, but in the past they've been willing to talk...