Donlin Gold final EIS due out soon

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it will publish its Final Environmental Impact Statement

for the big Donlin Gold project in April, so the FEIS could come out any day. The large gold deposit is near the mid-Kuskokwim River south of McGrath. A federal Record of Decision approving the document will follow the FEIS in about 120 days. The nal step would be for the owners, Barrick Gold and NovaGold Resources, to develop the project, which had a capital cost estimate of $6 billion several years ago. Costs have no doubt risen, a factor the owners must consider. An encouraging sign is that Donlin Gold did more drilling at the mine site last summer to con rm earlier estimates of resources.

If the mine goes into construction it will provide a big economic uptick for Southcentral Alaska as well as the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. Calista Corp., the region- al Alaska Native corporation, is the owner of subsurface mineral rights at the mine. The surface lands are owned by The Kuskokwim Corp., a consortium of small village corporations in the area

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Pebble pre-feasibility report

Pebble Partnership says it hopes to publish a preliminary economic assessment by the end of 2018 for its planned copper/gold/molybdenum mine near Iliamna, southwest of Anchorage. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has scoping meetings underway for the project Environmental Impact Statement, which is attracting a considerable turnout and commentary from local people, mostly opposing the mine.

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Ambler resource road

Another project where locals are criticizing developers is the Ambler resource road, now in the planning stages. The latest is that the Native Village of Kotzebue, an in uential Northwest Alaska tribal group, says it now opposes the proposed road that would link mines in the Ambler Mining District, and Bornite in the upper Kobuk River, to the existing Dalton Highway. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state development nance agency, is supporting preparation of a federal Environmental Impact Statement for the road.

No road will be built unless minerals companies now exploring discoveries can develop a mine. AIDEA won’t build the road unless there is a mine and a company that will sign a contract to pay tolls for trucking ore. However, critics have cited the agency’s cost of working on the EIS – $6 million has been spent so far – without a clear signal that mine development will proceed. Trilogy Metals is well along in advanced exploration and engineering studies at the Arctic deposit.

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Alaska was fourth in the nation in non-fuel mineral production in 2017, at $3.5 billion in value, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.