Cook Inletkeeper has joined a lawsuit to stop the Johnson Tract Gold Mine — an industrial project that threatens one of Alaska’s last wild coastal ecosystems.
Last week, Inletkeeper joined the Center for Biological Diversity, the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council, and a local stakeholder who fishes in Tuxedni Bay in a lawsuit aimed at the proposed Johnson Tract Gold Mine. The lawsuit challenges how the Army Corps of Engineers overlooked the mine’s potential to impact critical Beluga whale habitat, and release acid mine drainage into a pristine ecosystem. If it succeeds, the lawsuit would protect the vital ecosystems and the human economies of the Johnson River and Tuxedni Bay from mine impacts.
Your support and involvement are crucial in this fight. Take action now by signing Inletkeeper’s petition to make Tuxedni Bay a Cook Inlet Beluga Protection Zone. This is a necessary action to protect Belugas and prevent Johnson Tract Mine’s industrial port from being constructed in Tuxedni Bay.
Located within Lake Clark National Park at the headwaters of the Johnson River, the proposed Johnson Tract gold mine would industrialize the base of Mt. Illiamna to Tuxedni Bay. The mine threatens:
- Endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales
- Alaska’s largest seabird colony
- Thriving bear-viewing and fishing economies
- Traditional lands and subsistence fisheries
Alaskans highly value this region, with its designation as a National Park, National Maritime Refuge, and Critical Beluga Whale Habitat. Thousands of tourists show their appreciation by visiting Cook Inlet every year to experience its wild bear coast. In this stunning and uniquely healthy ecological community, we need to ensure that proposed developments are subject to the highest standards. Unfortunately, in the case of the Johnson Tract Gold Mine’s Army Corps 404 Clean Water Act Permit, it was not.
Publicly available information indicates the Johnson Tract deposit contains acid-generating rock and other sources of contaminants that, if excavated from mine exploration, could pollute the watershed to the detriment of a wide range of fish and wildlife. The Army Corps failed to thoroughly assess the potential for pollution of the Johnson River and Cook Inlet from the mine exploration project, as required by law. They issued the permit without acknowledging the acid-generating sample found at the mine site.
Metal mining and acid mine drainage go hand in hand. Sulfide minerals are very common anywhere that gold, silver, copper, and other metals are found, and when exposed to air and water, sulfide minerals form sulfuric acid. The waste rock piles, tailings, open pits, underground tunnels, and leach pads associated with mining projects are common sources of acid mine drainage. Johnson Tract will likely have one or more of these components, even if raw ore is shipped off-site for processing, as currently proposed.
The Endangered Species status of Cook Inlet beluga whales requires the Army Corps to complete consultations with NOAA Fisheries to ensure that belugas are adequately protected from harm before a permit is issued. Despite this, the Army Corps did not consider mitigation measures to reduce noise from aircraft traffic over Tuxedni Bay, and consultations were not completed. Belugas have a highly sensitive sense of hearing, and commonly use sound to navigate underwater, forage for food, and to communicate with each other. They are very sensitive to human-caused noise pollution, which can disrupt all of these processes and damage their populations.
We at Cook Inletkeeper are proud to join this group of plaintiffs in bringing this case to court to hold the Army Corps accountable to better practices. We cannot overlook the environmental, cultural, and economic trade-offs that would result if Johnson Tract is constructed. Traditional Chief Gary Harrison of Chickaloon Village Traditional Council neatly summarized the point: “The short-term economic gains of a gold mine are unconscionable and incompatible with Alaskans’ needs into the future. You can’t eat gold.”