Press Releases

To get the mine up and running and put residents of Juneau and the surrounding communities to work, Coeur Alaska and Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC), Lynn Canal Conservation, and the Juneau Group, Sierra Club committed earlier this year to work together to explore environmentally and commercially sound plans for opening the mine. The result was the previously reported agreement to ask jointly that the Forest Service and other regulatory agencies evaluate a new mine operating plan.

This agreement was achieved because Coeur proposed a modified mine plan that it believed would address the concerns of the conservation groups and others. Specifically, the modified plan includes a new tailings disposal site above Comet Beach, use of "paste" technology to stabilize the tailings, various operations changes to accommodate the new plan, and the use of Yankee Cove instead of Cascade Point as the base for marine operations supporting the mine.

Goldbelt has asserted that the use of Yankee Cove is a "new demand" by SEACC. In fact, both Coeur and Goldbelt have been aware since at least 2005 that SEACC and the other Conservation Groups objected to the use of public tidelands at Cascade Point. After lengthy litigation, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently invalidated the federal permit necessary to use Cascade Point, an unmistakable indication that objection to Cascade Point is long standing. When representatives of the conservation groups appeared before the Juneau Assembly on August 20, 2007, to express their willingness to work with Coeur Alaska to open the Kensington mine, they specifically identified Cascade Point as an issue to be resolved.

The modified mine operating plan has been preliminarily reviewed with the Forest Service and the State Department of Natural Resources, and meetings with other regulatory agencies are being planned. Coeur expects to formally begin the permitting process by filing its modified plan of operations with the regulators late this year or very early in 2008.

Contact: Mayor Bruce Botelho, 907-586-5240
City & Borough of Juneau
Alaska's Capital City