Environment

This week a crew has plowed 135 miles of an ice road from Bethel to Aniak. Mark Leary, with the Native Village of Napaimute, leads the crew and reports that there are wet, rough ice stretches from Akiak to Aniak, with the roughest ice sitting just below Aniak.

Donlin Gold has signed an agreement with the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority to protect some of the Trust's wetlands in the Cook Inlet area. The company is trying to develop one of the biggest gold mines in the world in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and the mine, if built, would disturb 2,800 acres of wetlands. Because Donlin can’t restore all of those wetlands, it is required to protect wetlands somewhere else. 

For as long as anyone remembers, Napakiak has been retreating from the Kuskokwim. The village of about 400 people sits on a bend in the river, and every year that bend grows deeper. In recent years, the erosion has accelerated. As the land has fallen away, Napakiak has picked up its homes and buildings and moved them further from the water. 

Donlin Gold is waiting on one important permit for its proposed gold mine in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The state says that it will issue a decision by the end of 2018. And next year looks pretty busy for Donlin as state agencies prepare for public hearings over more permits. The company needs at least 100 permits before it can start mining.