A Yup'ik View on the Donlin Creek Mine: A Guest Post

[This 'visitor' comment from my post yesterday about the proposed Pebble and Donlin mining developments in SW Alaska was so great I had to repost it and give it prime space today. The comment was written by Elaine Andrew a Yup'ik writer and educator from Kasigluk, Alaska.  She currently lives in Nunapitchuk, AK, and is a frequent commenter to the blog and hopefully will be contributing some posts when I am off the grid or just off my rocker.]


Donlin Creek, right below Crooked Creek, AK on the Kuskokwim River. I visited the site myself in 1998 with my village corporation board of directors, other area village corporation boards, and Calista Corp, which at the time was spearheading WAVE: Western Alaska Village Enterprises. Calista is heavily involved and vested in the development of this gold mine even though they represent this large region where the shareholders and descendents depend on the salmon that run here every year since the beginning of time. And we will continue to do so as long as there are still fish returning to spawn, and as long as the State allows us [Alaska Natives] to practice our time-honored-subsistence-traditions in peace.

In my opinion, the "booming success" of this business development is currently only a blessing to its owners, investors and the Alaska Natives who live in the immediate vicinity of the actual proposed gold mine. If, God forbid, the mine should fail to produce actual gold in the immediate or foreseeable future or if the reassurances from high and low about the by-products and waste materials from the operations of the mine being safe for the salmon industry fail, the consequences won't just fall into that immediate area alone. We will ALL feel it. And not just by those of us who are alive today, but maybe even by those who are yet to be born. You can't tear into ground looking for gold w/o realistically thinking about the impact that poking around is going to leave behind and anyone who says otherwise can be traced back to having Donlin Creek connections themselves.

Elaine Andrew