A group of leaders from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta flew to Juneau last week to air concerns about the budget and the proposed Donlin gold mine to lawmakers and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration.
The group also said that they tried to meet with Dunleavy and administration officials about concerns regarding permits for the Donlin mine.
"We’ve been trying to set up a meeting with the governor himself; I don’t know if he’s too busy or just don’t want to talk to people opposed to what he’s trying to push," said Peter Evon, the executive director of Bethel’s Orutsararmiut Native Council. The tribe is spearheading an effort to protest the Donlin mine in the region. Evon said that Dunleavy offered a meeting with a policy advisor, but the group declined the invitation.
Evon says the group also met with Rep. Tiffany Zulkosky and Sen. Lyman Hoffman about Dunleavy’s proposed budget, as well as the mine. Both are Democrats who represent most of the Y-K Delta in the Alaska Legislature, but lawmakers have little power over the permitting process. Regulatory agencies decide whether a major mining project like Donlin meets state standards. Evon says that Sen. Hoffman told the group that they need to take their complaints up with the Calista Regional Native Corporation, which owns the subsurface rights to the mine.
"And he made that pretty clear that Calista is who is going to be on the hook for this," Evon said.
The Donlin gold mine would be one of the biggest in the world, if completed, and it received major federal and state permits last year that pushed it closer to development. The group also sent out a letter to request Juneau meetings with state agency heads at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
DEC already met with the group, ADF&G spokesperson Karen Montoya says that the agency is working on a meeting with them, and a spokesperson for DNR says that the agency told the group to use the public comment process, especially as it gears up for more public hearings across the region.