Edward Kookesh and his son caught a seal over the weekend. As he prepared to cut up the seal the next day, he admits never seeing an overabundance of seals in the water, but they have always been a staple in the locals’ diet around where he lives. Mr. Kookesh lives in Angoon, a small village in Southeast Alaska of 450 residents and others who travel back and forth between Juneau, the state capital city, and Angoon. Kookesh and his wife own White Raven Furs and Creations in Angoon. They started making trapper hats, beanie style hats, blankets, jewelry, and other items out of seal hide almost five years ago. By word of mouth and selling to friends up north in Fairbanks, Edward and his wife decided to open a shop. “We were always hunters and fishermen growing up, and we are trying to get our kids to do the same,” says Kookesh.
Kookesh harvesting a seal on May 4, 2019. Edward Kookesh
Seal fur trapper hats sold at Kookesh’s shop. White Raven Furs and Creations, Edward Kookesh
Families in Angoon continue to raise younger generations on subsistence food such as seal, fish, and deer. Angoon has one grocery store and nothing gets shipped in from barges like in Juneau and other larger towns, so all goods arrive by ferry. Angoon has only six miles of road, versus Kake or Hoonah–two remote villages in Alaska surrounded by miles of roads created by logging. Though modern times have changed access to commercialized foods throughout Southeast Alaska, the infrastructure and way of life in Angoon remains unchanged; new generations acquire a taste for the local foods the community has relied on for hundreds of years. Locals in Angoon refer to their subsistence lifestyle as “a traditional way of life”. Kookesh says he never charges people in Angoon for extra meat he hunts, “Everybody will go knocking on doors until someone needs that extra fish or that seal.” Out of respect to elders in the community, and since it is difficult for many elders to go hunt and catch food, Kookesh, and other families will provide elders with fresh food.
However, since 2016, Mr. Kookesh’s traditional way of making a living has come under threat. A nearby silver mine known as Greens Creek Mine appears to be leaking mercury into the surrounding waters of Hawk Inlet. Three years ago, Kookesh shot a seal on the shore near the mine to distribute to friends and family. After the locals consumed the seal, a sample of the seal was sent to a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) laboratory to test. Results showed that the seal contained unusually high amounts of mercury in the liver as well as other toxic, heavy metals. Although residents informed local news outlets in nearby Juneau that there were no physical ailments caused by consuming the seal meat and nobody reported feeling sick, residents were nonetheless alarmed.
Three years after Kookesh harvested the contaminated seal, he still feels that this issue hurts his people’s dependence on seals. “I don’t know anyone who goes there to harvest seals anymore after the testing came back,” he said. “Now we travel up to ten miles to get them.”
He went on, “We would be worried if other seals around here were poisoned from the mine because that would mean we would have to travel even farther away from home to harvest them.”
The First Scare
Greens Creek mine, owned by Hecla Mining Company, began operating on Admiralty Island in 1989. Admiralty Island is fifty miles from Juneau’s city center by boat or seaplane but is easily accessible from behind Douglas Island, Juneau’s smaller residential island.
Greens Creek Mine (aerial view of one tailing site on Admiralty Island). Hecla Mining Company
“Our way of life is getting more and more threatened,” says Maxine Thompson of Angoon. Mrs. Thompson refers to the incident in May 2015 involving the seal that Mr. Kookesh harvested, which later sparked uneasiness among residents in Angoon. Residents continue to try to consume seals as part of their diet, but with more caution and awareness of the effects of mercury poisoning.
Physicians advise limiting exposure to mercury, especially to children and those in utero; pregnant mothers should avoid it. Considering the subsistence lifestyle in Angoon, the locals’ mercury exposure source is mostly seafood. The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services provides recommendations on how much mercury-containing fish to consume. Those higher up on the food chain, like a seal, contain higher amounts of mercury.
Measurable Change
Besides human health, ecosystems and wildlife are also affected by toxic metal leaching. Although the results concerned locals and researchers, there remain no reports available of the health of Hawk Inlet after Greens Creek Mine opened. The US Forest Service (USFS) released an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) creating a baseline species study of the Hawk Inlet area in 1983. At the mine, they took an inventory of all the species and recorded population estimates in the intertidal region. Since then, the Forest Service did not release any additional reports on species health. If the USFS repeated the baseline, local scientists in Juneau say that the effects of mining activities will be made apparent at the evidence with “widespread contamination and population declines.” Guy Archibald, a former environmental chemist and now a staff scientist at Southeast Conservation Council (SEACC), comments on Greens Creek Mine, “I took a hard look to be sure they were following guidance and the law,”. He goes on, “This has led to almost ten years of analysis that has identified numerous failures of law, implementation and the permitting structure itself,” Archibald admits it has been an ongoing issue that SEACC has been investigating since 2011 when the state gained primacy from the EPA.
Mining in Southeast Alaska is a different ballgame compared to the dry areas of the lower 48 and northern Alaska. According to US climate data, Juneau’s annual precipitation yields approximately 62 inches. Compared to Alaska’s largest city just an hour and 20-minute flight north, Anchorage has 17 inches of rainfall per year. The high amounts of rainfall exacerbate acid rock drainage (ARD). Acid rock drainage or acid mine drainage (AMD) occurs as sulfide minerals become exposed to air and rain. The sulfide oxidizes and leeches into the water to make it acidic. The Taku Winds, a wind that flows perpendicular to the surrounding mountains and through Taku Inlet, causes another waste management issue in Southeast Alaska. The winds blow dry tailings, which cause more pollution to waterways, forests, and grasslands.
“If you go by the mine in a boat it’s hard to put it in
perspective–you can’t tell the scale of the tailing mounds,”
comments a Juneau local observing the mine from afar.
Greens Creek protesters are particularly worried recently because of similar pollution occurring at an old mine site near Juneau. The location of Tulsequah Chief Mine in British Columbia, which operated from 1950 to 1957, continues to cause environmental issues to the area similar to the Greens Creek issue. The mine once operated 100 km from Atlin, a town in BC. However, the mine site is closer to Alaska being only 10 km upstream from the Tulsequah River which merges with the Taku River. The Taku River drains into Taku Inlet located over the state border in Alaska. According to the Government of British Columbia, the former copper, silver, gold, zinc, and lead mine has been discharging (AMD) into Tulsequah River since most likely 1957. Since the Tulsequah River eventually empties into Alaskan waters, this created transboundary issues and caused Alaskans to point the finger at BC for neglection since many Juneau locals use the tributaries that drain into Hawk Inlet for subsistence gathering.
Acid mind drainage at site of where Tulsequah Chief Mine operated in the 1950's. Chris Miller
Furthermore, the area of the old Tulsequah Chief Mine site is part of the Taiga (Boreal) forest, which hosts wildlife such as porcupine, grizzly bears, red fox, and deer and is also biologically rich with pine cones, lichen and moss. Juneau and its surrounding areas, experience long cold winters and short cool summers. The issue of Tulsequah shows that slow-growing coniferous forests take a long time or never fully recover from extensive mining projects. Based on studies conducted by SEACC, Hawk Inlet suffered a loss of biodiversity. According to SEACC’s scientific sampling released March of 2018, the sediment in Hawk Inlet had 1.2 times the amount of manganese, 646 times for lead, as well as other toxic metals from the original baseline study. “The average increase for the 11 metals was 73 times original baseline highs and 183 times the inlet-wide mean original baseline,” They also found the same elevated levels of heavy metals in crab and bivalves as compared to seafood data of the same species throughout Alaska. Guy Archibald notes that biological systems are resilient to the occasional significant impact, but do not handle constant low-level stress well. The aquatic species in Hawk Inlet suffered exposure to small amounts of mercury over a considerable time. Bioaccumulation (toxins accumulating in organism tissue over their lifespan and up the food chain) worries scientists as more and more organisms other than the seal examined in 2016, carry high content of toxic metals. Additionally, this can explain the possible shifting of water quality in the inlet.
Another biologically rich area that may be at risk encompasses the land of the proposed Pebble Mine. In 2007 a Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., a London-based company, established the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) in hopes to create one of the world’s largest copper-gold-molybdenum mines. The mine proposal raised an outcry of protest from conservationists, scientists, and especially fishermen in the area. If developed, the mine will operate in the Bristol Bay (basin) region in Southwestern Alaska. Studies show that Bristol Bay, home to the largest wild salmon fishery in North America, will suffer economically. In addition to the threats against the economic stability of the region, scientists believe that the health of the aquatic ecosystems will deteriorate catastrophically. For over a decade, Alaskans have protested against movements towards development. Under the Obama administration, the EPA blocked pebble mine in 2014. However, under Trump, Scott Pruitt, the former administrator of the EPA, pushed the permitting process forward again. Currently, the proposal is undergoing a public comment period through July 1st.
Nick Lee, a commercial fisherman in Bristol Bay and owner of Alaska Select Seafood, said in an interview, “the proposed Pebble Mine would strip desired materials from the deposit and leave a tailings storage facility (a dam) of 30 billion cubic feet of 'toxic soup,' to be mitigated in perpetuity”.
Bristol Bay Watershed, Alaska. Robert Glenn Ketchum
During a community question meeting last month, The Pebble Partnership Vice President of Permitting, James Fueg, responded to concerns about potential impact to salmon and the fisheries in the area, “We know there’s going to be localized impacts from where we put our facilities and all of that, but beyond the boundaries of the mine, we have no impact on fish and wild resources,” he said. Contrary to what the mining company stated, the EPA made an assessment in 2014 that determined that if the planned dam that holds the mine’s tailings “failed and released just 20% of the toxins, the affected streams would not support fish life for several years and would provide low-quality spawning and rearing habitat for decades”.
A document produced by the mining company, states that rock on the site contains sulfide-sulfur concentrations primarily between 1% and 5%, and ranging to 9% or higher. The high volume of rock containing 1% – 5% sulfide, concerns many scientists because of the high probability that this will lead to AMD development at the proposed Pebble Mine site. Non-profit organizations like the Wild Salmon Center and Trout Unlimited studied the potential effects of AMD on the salmon species in Bristol Bay. In a report released by these organizations called Bristol Bay’s Wild Salmon Ecosystems, they stated that water bodies with low pH (water acidity scale) create poor salmon habitat. Therefore, if acid waters host fewer invertebrate species, it will cause a decrease in abundance and biodiversity when compared to healthy pH level waters. If Pebble Mine development in Bristol Bay will create a smaller pool of locally adapted species (in acid-rich water), fewer food resources will be available–for the species in the area and for the people who rely on the functioning ecosystems.
The Grandfather
Greens Creek Mine and the Hawk Inlet issue has also started a conversation about the adequate forest and ecosystem management, and it too is unresolved. The people of Angoon feel that the mine is changing the lives of their entire community, but they do not all agree on whom to blame.
The city of Angoon, located on the west side of Admiralty Island, continues to fight for the protection of their lands. The Angoon Community Association (ACA) remains the driving entity towards preservation on Admiralty Island. The ACA has been a tribal entity since the 1930s, and locals often refer to it as “The Grandfather” because they trust it to protect their way of life. Admiralty Island became a national monument in 1978. Locals lobbied to preserve the island; three elder couples from Angoon traveled to Washington DC with their own money.
Maxine Thompson, who grew up in Angoon, says her parents, her uncle and his wife and another elder couple were the locals who chose to travel to DC to lobby. Nearly four decades ago, Maxine’s father’s family and her parents protested, standing outside of City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) office during the council meetings, while others gave testimony on why the island needed protection. After much debate, eventually, the island was made a national monument.
Corporations such as Goldbelt, a Juneau-based Alaska native for-profit company, and Sealaska, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation, among others own acreage on admiralty island. When the corporations first formed, their goal was to preserve the land; the corporation did not have funding at this time, and they wanted to honor the requests of elders. After the corporation leaders asked what the elders wanted for their community, Thompson remembers them telling the corporations, “We just want to preserve our way of life.” Southeast Alaskans and the government disagree on the advantages and disadvantages of annexing regions of the island–such as the proposed expansion of Greens Creek Mine. The divide is clear between native corporations and tribal councils. Often, native governances will support the mine while the tribal council such as Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes shows opposition to the mine. Greens Creek Mine had mining claims on the area before Admiralty Island became a national monument; it is a rare occurrence, that a large-scale mine currently operates on a national monument.
Conservations like SEACC do not accuse the Hecla Mining Company of irresponsibility or carrying misplaced values. Hecla operates in a way that promises sustainability and follows regulations. Instead, conservationists complaints are with the agencies that control Hecla Mining Co. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Forest Service suffered backlash concerning the land that Greens Creek Mine operates on and the waterways that the DEC controls. Scientists and researchers blame the Forest Service for failing to follow up with regular, species health reports of the Hawk Inlet area.
Paul Robbins, a staff officer of the Tongass National Forest for the USFS, reports, “Once contacted, the Forest Service could look into the matter to ensure the private organization was in compliance with their agreement and activities fell within the guidelines of the National Environmental Policy Act, which is what we use during environmental assessments for activities on public lands.
“If the activity affecting the water or lands originated from outside of public lands managed by the Forest Service, communities should engage their local and state elected officials” he adds.
Albert Howard, the Mayor of Angoon, commented on the lack of guidelines and penalties the state government enforces on mining companies like Hecla in a Southeast Alaska Federal Subsistence Regional Advisory Council Meeting in Juneau in February of last year, “There’s nothing in place. No guidelines in place. No penalties for anyone. So you can’t blame the mining companies because the state sets the water quality standard,”.
“They lowered the standard to make it so the mines can do what they do,” he adds.
Gina Shirey, the Local and Tribal Government Coordinator for the DEC, says it is difficult to say there that there is one way to deal with communities affected by a private company on public water or lands; it is a long process for a group of people to communicate their concerns to the DEC.
Hoping and Waiting for Next Week’s Catch
The number of people willing to continue to push for further research into the health of Hawk Inlet and Angoon people can only grow. “I would be willing to get some from this area tested if we could find the right people to test them,” says Edward Kookesh. The scientist, Michelle Ridgeway, whom he gave the first tests to in 2016, passed away in a car accident last year in Juneau. She was known as the first push to increase awareness of the diminishing biodiversity in Hawk Inlet and the unfit regulations in place.
The issue with Greens Creek Mine remains unresolved by government bodies and the state. Though, local and state conservations and scientists continue to search for additional evidence. Recently, the tribal council permitted SEACC to accesses a 500-600 years old clam bed in Hawk Inlet. Their plan includes gathering samples from the clam bed and comparing the data to current clams and cockles to create a baseline study of TK health.
The recent documentary released last August by SEACC, Irreparable Harm, written and directed by Colin Arisman and Connor Gallager of Wild Confluence Media and Votiv Earth, featured a rare appearance of a Greens Creek Mine spokesman responding to SEACC’s allegations. Mike Satre, the manager of government and community relations for the mine, said in the film, “We remain committed to working with these state regulatory agencies (DEC and (Tongass) Forest Service) to minimize our impacts while continuing to provide benefits to our surrounding communities.” However, currently, there is not much communication between Angoon locals and mine. Although many Angoon locals involve themselves in issues concerning Greens Creek including the town council and mayor, better communication with the mine may improve relations, and transparency says, professionals.
“We suggest tribes to pass a tribal solution, and they will do so either in favor of the mine or against,” says Heather Evoy the Indigenous Engagement Lead at SEACC. This action may slow down the permitting process a mining company undergoes and allows for further communication between local tribes and the mine. Another proposed idea to encourage interaction with Hecla and Angoon is to have university students train in water quality and sampling. This additional education also helps direct employment with mines in the area. Currently, Hecla Mining does not employ any Angoon citizens. Evoy agrees that hiring citizens of the town for mining jobs would help the economic development of Angoon.
Alaska appears to need to take great strides if lawmakers and Alaskans wish to improve environmentally-destructive conditions caused by intensive mineral mining. Southeast Alaskans hoped solving the Tulsequah Chief mine issue after so many years would require little effort. Bill Bennett, the former mining minister of the Province of British Columbia, flew to Tulsequah Chief mine with the Lieutenant governor to inspect over 50 years of sulfuric acid leakage that turned the water yellow-orange. However, according to Mr. Sensmeier, a Tlingit council member, Bennett promised to get it cleaned up, but he then resigned and took a job with a mining company last year.
Edward Kookesh knows the process of getting a seal for dinner as well as shoppers know their weekly route to the grocery store. With his skiff perched on a rock, he waits for seals to emerge in the shallows. After he shoots one, it sinks quickly, so he or his son keeps an eye on it until they manage to load it on the boat. Back in Angoon, they skin the seal for the hide to make hats and crafts in his store. He noticed many artists started making seal-hide crafts and selling them–similar to the business he and his wife started together. Kookesh said, “After dividing the rest of the seal, we distribute the seal fat– used to make seal grease to cook eggs and fish– and meat to members of the community.” After many of his close friends and family consumed the contaminated seal he harvested 4 years ago, Kookesh hopes he won’t put them in danger again. He’s grateful their all alive and that he can continue to harvest foods in certain areas far from Hawk Inlet and Greens Creek Mine, but he can’t help but wonder how bad things are going to get and if the people of Angoon could play a part in fixing it.
