Open and ready for business.

• Author: Carroll, Ed
• Position: Alaska mining companies

Mineral companies digging in here say they're attracted by Alaska's attitude.

Alaska's modern resurgence in mining compares to the turn-of-the-century gold rash that helped settle the state. While mining today is a very different business than the old pick-and-shovel prospecting, even modern multinationals can move in waves with word of good diggings in far-away lands.

Gov. Tony Knowles' own pronouncement of Alaska's attitude - "Alaska is open and ready to do business with the mineral industry" - has helped draw interest like the news of gold strikes fueled those past waves of miners. What's better is that today's miners - often skeptical of government pledges - are optimistic that in Alaska they have a willing partner, good prospects and a positive political climate for long-term investments.

While Alaska's vast mineral resources have been pursued for more than a century, interest in exploration and mining dropped dramatically in the mid-'80s following years of shifting land status and murky permit procedures. "The industry has had a negative view of Alaska," says Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association.

"I think the industry is bullish on Alaska, that's for certain," says Mike Rounds director of communications for Cyprus Amax Minerals Co. and spokesman for Amax Gold Inc., the developer of the Fort Knox Mine outside of Fairbanks. If a new, pro-mining attitude in Alaska were more political image than fact, Rounds would know: 41 permits were needed to launch the country's largest mine development project.

"There are states in the union that will fight you tooth and nail," Rounds adds. "Alaska is almost a model for how states should handle mine development."

As Placer Dome U.S. president and CEO Jay Taylor told the miners' association convention last November: "... in the case of Alaska, there is a growing perception in my company, and I believe the industry at large, that a stable and positive climate for mineral exploration and development is being put in place." Placer Dome returned to Alaska with exploration efforts in recent years, and in 1995 announced the discovery of a major gold ore body at Donlin Creek in the Interior.

Tom Crafford, manager for coal and minerals for Anchorage.-based Cook Inlet Region Inc. (CIRI), is also optimistic about the industry's reception here and about mining's impact on land-owner Native companies like his. "I think it's fair to say that the Knowles administration has signed...