Recent News

Coeur Alaska wants to build more employee housing at the Kensington Gold Mine.

On Tuesday, the Juneau Planning Commission reviews Coeur’s application to modify a 2004 allowable use permit, which set conditions for the mine within the city and borough.

In addition to construction of a new three-story, 96-bed dormitory, modifying the permit would allow Coeur to convert two temporary dorms built last year into permanent housing. The result would be permanent on-site housing for 216 employees at the mine, located 45-miles north of Juneau.

Kensington also has 10 trailers on-site, which serve as temporary housing for 64 workers. Five of the trailers will be transitioned to office or storage space, according to a memo from CBJ Planner Beth McKibben.

Kensington Environmental Superintendent Kevin Eppers submitted a letter along with the company’s application to modify the permit. In it he says the new dorm is needed to provide 24-hour coverage, and account for winter weather which may prevent travelling to and from the mine. He also says it will provide for additional local and regional hire.

The company says utilities are already in place at the mine site for the new dormitory.

Employee commuting practices are not expected to change as a result of any new housing. Goldbelt Corporation currently operates 12 round trip buses per week from Engineer’s Cutoff Road to Yankee Cove, about 30 miles north of Juneau. From there a boat takes workers the rest of the way to the mine in Berners Bay.

Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting starts at 7 o’ clock in CBJ Assembly Chambers.

The tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks was remembered in Juneau on Sunday. Vehicles from Capital City Fire and Rescue, including a ladder track with a large American Flag hung from the end of an extended ladder, and local Harley Davidson owners lined one side of Riverside Drive as firefighters, police officers, and others congregated at Riverside Rotary Park. That’s the site of a flag pole memorial, in the shape of a pentagon, that’s meant to commemorate the victims of the attacks in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania.

Here are some of the sounds of Sunday’s service, conducted during the times that the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell ten years ago.

Participants of the service included Capital City and Fire Rescue Chaplin Sam Dalin, singer Siara Kelly, Brent Fischer of the Civil Air Patrol who recounted the significance of the memorial and how it was created, Officer Chris Gifford of the Juneau Police Department, firefighter Charlie Blattner, Juneau Rotarian Carl Ferlauto, and a single piper from Stroller White Pipes and Drums.

Louis Menendez is the newest Superior Court Judge for Juneau.

Menendez took the oath on Friday afternoon as administered by Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Walter Carpeneti by videoconference from Anchorage.

Menendez was one of five people who originally applied for the seat being vacated by retiring Superior Court Judge Patricia Collins. Menendez was eventually selected by Governor Sean Parnell last May and he starts work on the bench on September 12.

According to information provided by the Juneau court system, roughly 30-percent of the cases handled by Menendez will likely be felony criminal cases, about 25-percent are divorces and dissolutions, and child support and custody cases. The rest is a mix of probate, general civil, child in need of aid (CINA), and delinquency cases.

Since 1995, Menendez has made his mark as a private defense attorney, sometimes taking on high profile cases. His application to the bench also notes spending each summer in the Naknek area defending fishermen ticketed during the Bristol Bay red salmon fishery. Menendez earned his law degree from University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco with graduate work at New York University. The start of his law career includes working as a federal public defender in Texas, in civil law in Juneau, and as a state prosecutor in various Alaska communities — interspersed with stints caring for family in Monterey, California and attending New York University Film School.

A public swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for September 30.

Memorial services for Joe Tagaban have been set for Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the Juneau Christian Center, across from Fred Meyer.

The 30-year-old Juneau man was killed in a mining accident on Wednesday at the Kensington Gold Mine.

A reception is set for 5 pm. at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Juneau. Joe’s parents, Mike and Sandy Tagaban, say they chose the organization because Joe was the “ultimate big brother.”

A pair of Vancouver-based mining companies in a joint venture to explore the Herbert Glacier area say they’ve found high-grade concentrations of gold.

Assays of test drilling showed gold concentrations averaging 1.08 ounces per ton. Some samples came back as high as 4.14 to 6.63 ounces per ton. Initial assays were announced last month with updated results released on Tuesday.

Ian Klassen, President and Director of Grande Portage Resources Incorporated, says they did some modest drilling last year with fourteen holes down to over 900 feet. Twenty-two holes have been drilled so far this summer. Klassen says they’ve identified what he calls multi-ounce intersects in at least two of the five vein systems in the area.

“We’re very pleased with some of the results we’ve been getting,” said Klassen.

Herbert Glacier, 18-miles north of downtown Juneau, is in the middle of the historic Juneau mining district, with Kensington Mine currently operating 25-miles to the north and Greens Creek Mine about 12-miles to the west.

Klassen says they plan to meet with their field geologists this weekend to determine future plans – such as further exploration. He says it’s way too early to come up with a reliable resource estimate.

In late 2007, Vancouver-based Quaterra Resources acquired the 1700 acre property with 84 federal mining claims either staked or leased from three local prospectors. There are at least four to five significant veins that strike east-to-west and dip sharply to the north. One of the veins was described as being discovered in the 1980’s when glacial ice receded. Information provided by Quaterra showed varying amounts of gold found during exploratory drilling by Tenneco Minerals and Echo Bay Mines in the late eighties.

Quaterra President and CEO Thomas Patton is currently unavailable for comment. But his firm partnered with Grande Portage in June, 2010 for exploration and development of Herbert Glacier. Grande Portage’s Ian Klassen says they’ve committed to spending $1.25 million in exploration costs before June, 2012 in exchange for a 65 percent interest in the project.

“It just was the right place, right time and an opportunity for us when we were looking for an added portfolio to work with that we struck a deal to go forward,” said Klassen. “We’re pleased we’ve done so.”

Grande Portage is also developing the Merry Widow Group on Vancouver Island and the Pass Property in British Columbia. Quaterra either owns or is a partner in nine other mining projects from Montana to central Mexico.

In August 2001, Nicole Hallingstad moved from Fairbanks to New York City pretty much on a whim.

“My first choice would have been to move to Europe. My master’s degree was in European history. But given that I didn’t have any prospects in Europe, I thought, well, what’s the best domestic choice? And so of course it had to be New York City,” Hallingstad says.

Her apartment was located three blocks from the World Trade Center, and she decided to visit the twin towers for the first time on September 10th. A fear of heights kept her from going up to the observation deck.

“No, never made it up to the top and you know, I’ve still got receipts from the shops that I went to that say September 10, 2001, World Trade Center. And the next day, they were gone.”

Ten days after the attacks she was allowed back in her apartment for 15 minutes, accompanied by National Guard soldiers. She remembers it being filled with debris from the fallen towers. It would be five weeks before she was allowed back for good.

“People talk about it like it was a movie, it was a war zone. It’s something that you don’t experience in real life and the only way you can reach to describe it is by comparing it to things that you’ve seen in magazines or on the screen,” says Hallingstad.

Having grown up in Petersburg, the lure of Alaska brought her back to Juneau in 2003, and today she’s vice president and corporate secretary at Sealaska Native Corporation. She says it’s still kind of surreal to think back to that time.

“I absolutely am still processing it,” Hallingstad says. “I find that I still get a little teary-eyed and I get shaky when I think about that day. And part of the reason I get so emotional is because I remember the tremendous upswell of humanity and kindness that I experienced in those days and weeks and months in New York City after 9-11.”

Destiny Sargeant went to New York about a month after 9-11.

“I saw the best and the worst of humanity,” says Sargeant.

A psychologist at the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, Sargeant leads Juneau’s Critical Incident Stress Management Team, which exists simply to talk to people and guide them through traumatic events.

“We literally walked around every day, ground zero, to talk to the people that were having to look at this trauma day-in-day out,” Sargeant says. “Tried to help support them emotionally and educationally, let them know what to expect and where they can get the assistance and help they needed, and we helped normalize their feelings for them.”

Critical incident stress management teams have been around for over 20 years, but only started gaining recognition in the wake of 9-11. Several teams like Juneau’s went to New York after the attacks at the request of authorities there. But if September 11th taught us anything, Sargeant says it’s that the fear bred by terrorism isn’t isolated in one place.

“People watched the same things over and over again on television, even the newscasters were affected, you know it was traumatic for them,” she says. “Our nation really came to standstill. That’s what I remember. No planes were flying, it was difficult to go anywhere, and it really sort of took over everybody’s life.”

Juneau Police Detective Kim Horn is also a member of the stress management team. While she hopes to never have to go through something like that again, she says it was rewarding in the sense of being able to help people cope, especially her peers in law enforcement.

“Being able to help somebody else go through something very personal and tragic, not only for themselves but for their community,” she says.

Horn says many of the New Yorkers she met were more interested in hearing about Alaska, than they were in talking about their recent trauma. Some have since come to visit Juneau and other parts of the state.

“This last summer one of the officers who we had talked to came up on a tour, so we actually gave them a tour of Juneau,” says Horn. “So there is that connection that we still do hear from them every now and then.”

Horn, Sargeant and Hallingstad plan to mark Sunday’s 9-11 anniversary in different ways. Horn will join other Juneau officers and Capital City Fire and Rescue firefighters in a memorial stair climb.

“It’s in honor of the firefighters who climbed the twin towers. We’re going to be doing 110 flights of stairs at the federal building.”

Sargeant will be at the annual memorial service held at Riverside Rotary Park.

“I go every year that I’m in town,” she says.

Hallingstad says she’ll be on a plane for at least part of the anniversary. She’s flying to Seattle to be with her fiancée and other loved ones.

“At the end of the day, I think that’s the very best way to mark any kind of remembrance is to love one another, and to make those connections with people and keep those connections with people,” says Hallingstad. “Because, as I think almost everybody realized ten years ago, that’s really what matters.”