Environment

Update, 9:30 a.m. Thursday:

The repeal resolution passed the Senate Thursday by a vote of 49-45. It goes next to the president’s desk.

Original story:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate is about to vote on a resolution to toss ex-President Biden’s limits on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and ensure nothing like it is imposed again.

The measure would expand the area available for leasing to the entire coastal plain of the refuge, in the northeast corner of Alaska. It is part of a strategy to dismantle Biden’s environmental legacy, much of which took place in Alaska, the state with the most federal land.

The sponsor of the repeal, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, described it as removing Biden’s barriers to resource development in Alaska.

“We opposed their central Yukon Resource Management Plan, their integrated activity plan for our National Petroleum Reserve, and their decision to shut down any potential development on a very small part of the coastal plain,” she said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

Congress and the Trump administration have already nullified the Biden limits on leasing in the Arctic Refuge. But the latest nullification method uses the Congressional Review Act. That means a future president could not impose substantially similar limits without an act of Congress.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., spoke against the resolution. An outdoorsman who has travelled to the region, Heinrich described the refuge as a breathtaking wilderness that’s vital for hundreds of species of birds and wildlife.

“”The Arctic Refuge is the crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System, and it belongs to every single American,” he said. “It deserves our protection.”

Market forces may, in effect, provide that protection. No major oil companies bid when the first Trump administration held an ANWR lease sale in 2021. A lease sale during the Biden administration, with more restrictive conditions imposed, drew no bids at all.

The resolution cleared a Senate procedural vote largely along party lines Wednesday, with only Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, crossing the aisle to vote with Democrats. It’s expected to pass the Senate on a final vote Thursday. The House has already passed an identical resolution so it would go next to the president for signature.

Next week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold a closed-door, three-day meeting in Juneau to discuss long-term solution options for glacial outburst floods in the Mendenhall Valley. Federal agencies, local officials and researchers will participate. 

During the meeting, the group will discuss the pros and cons of five options to prevent homes from flooding in the coming years. Those options are:

• a dam at the outlet of Mendenhall Lake 
• a permanent levee 
• a lake tap or tunnel through the mountains to drain Suicide Basin 
• a bypass channel through the Mendenhall River floodplain
• relocating impacted residents from the Valley

The Army Corps will host the multi-day meeting, called a ‘charette’, at The Huddle in the Mendenhall Mall Dec. 9 through 11. 

Army Corps Spokesperson John Budnik wrote in an email to KTOO that the meeting will be closed to the public to “ensure open dialogue, idea and information sharing is achieved and uninhibited amongst the experts and stakeholders that will be there.”

Press briefings will be held at The Huddle after each day, and the Army Corps plans to publish a report summarizing the meeting for the public in January. 

The Army Corps solicited public input on potential solutions during a month-long public comment period that closed last week and received 34 comments. 

Two options received more attention in those comments than the others. The first is a lake tap or tunnel meant to drain Suicide Basin before it can fill to the point of bursting. The second is a dam or levee at the outlet of Mendenhall Lake. A few commenters favored a bypass channel through the floodplain. 

Some commented on the benefits and drawbacks of each solution, without necessarily favoring one. Others said they didn’t have enough information from the Army Corps about what each option would entail to weigh in. 

Many said that finding a solution is urgent for the hundreds of Valley residents who face annual flooding. The current levee, made of HESCO barriers, is temporary and protected homes from catastrophe by a slim margin during the most recent flood in August. 

The agency aims to recommend a long-term flood solution and design it by the end of May 2026. Budnik anticipates the public will have another opportunity to provide comments on the prospective solution in June 2026. 

Eaglecrest Ski Area is slated to open for its 50th season this Saturday. And there’s a lot to talk about ahead of the season – like lift conditions, the status of the gondola and the actual likelihood of opening on time. 

KTOO sat down with Craig Cimmons, the general manager of the city-owned ski area, to talk about all of it.

Listen:

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Mike Lane: So it’s starting to look like a winter wonderland up there?

Craig Cimmons: Oh yeah, we blew a bunch of snow, and then it snowed several inches. It was really magical in the parking lot filled with skiers and snowboarders. So it’s been great.

Mike Lane: Eaglecrest has previously announced that the Black Bear lift is permanently closed. Is there any update as far as what’s happening with the infrastructure at Eaglecrest? 

Craig Cimmons: There’s a ton to talk about. So unfortunately, Black Bear is closed. People keep asking if we’re going to fix it. It’s not worth fixing. It’s a very old lift. They got their money’s worth for it. It’s in a very old design that the industry has moved away from. So it’s smarter to put that time and energy into the other lifts right now, the other three lifts. Porcupine, Ptarmigan and Hooter are in incredibly good shape and ready to go. So the infrastructure— the staff who have been there for a while — say it’s been the best shape it’s been in years.

Mike Lane: What’s the life expectancy of the other three lifts? And how often are those maintained?

Craig Cimmons: They’re constantly maintained. It never really ends. There are so many moving parts on them. You’re just constantly greasing things and replacing things and checking on things. The life expectancy of those three lifts? They are at the end of their life, for sure. But they’re in good shape, so we will get plenty more years out of them, but we need to really start talking about a replacement plan for Ptarmigan, the main lift.

Mike Lane: Can skiers still access the runs that Black Bear was servicing?

Craig Cimmons: Yeah, for sure. You have to hike up. You have to walk up a bit from the top of Ptarmigan up to Black Bear. But 100% of the train terrain is still accessible. It’s just not via the lift.

Mike Lane: This January marks 50 years since Eaglecrest has been in operation. So, what — if anything — is planned for the milestone?

Craig Cimmons: We are so excited about 50 years — 50 years is a big deal. So, Jan. 16 is the anniversary, the 50th anniversary. Right now we’re playing on a couple of things. We’re gonna do night skiing that night. That’s a Friday night, so we’ll have lights on the Porcupine terrain. We did a couple of night events last year, and they were a huge success. So we’re really excited to do those again. We’ll get music going and make it a whole party and a scene and invite everyone to come up.

We’re also going to do all-day lift tickets. They are only $7, because that’s the price Eaglecrest lift tickets were when they opened 50 years ago. So, $7 lift tickets that day. Big party that night. And then we are also planning something for that Saturday as well. Everyone should just pay attention to our socials and everything. And we’re gonna make this year as much of a party as we can, because it’s 50 years. And then we’re going to kick off the next 50 years.

Mike Lane: Now, can we talk about the gondola? Can you give us any updates on its timeline and how that’s being paid for?

Craig Cimmons: The timeline is the same it has been: it’s got it open by the summer of 2028. Everything’s still moving forward. We still have the initial investment from Goldbelt (Incorporated). It has become clear that we will need more money to install it. 

The world has changed since Eaglecrest bought that. How much more money we’ll need, and where that money comes from? We don’t know yet. Once the general contractor is hired, they’re going to give us a price on what it will cost to finish the build, and then we’re going to know how much short we are from the initial $10 million. And then we’ll figure out where we get that money from. So that’s still to be determined.

Mike Lane: Craig, is there anything you’d like to add to this before we wrap up?

Craigh Cimmons: Yeah. I was thinking about that a lot. I’ve been here just over a year, and it’s incredible. The difference a year makes. From a year ago to now, the infrastructure is in better shape, we’re staffed better. The retention rate is incredible. We have tons of employees coming back, so we’re so much better set up for this winter. We’re really excited about this winter for all of those reasons. We’re just more prepared, we’re more of a team than we were a year ago. A lot of us were new last year, including myself, and it’s our 50th, so it’s all really coming together. So yeah, I’m just really overly excited about how set up we are for this winter, it’s going to be a really good one.

Ten years ago, the state of Alaska signed an agreement with British Columbia that sought to give Alaskans a say in the development of mines upstream of Southeast Alaska. Environmental advocates say Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration has walked away from key pillars of that agreement — but state officials say they remain committed to keeping cross-border rivers clean.

It’s a boom time for mines in British Columbia. There are a few reasons for that — the rise of renewable energy and the growing importance of microchips, and, of course, President Trump’s trade war. Provincial leaders have fast-tracked a variety of resource development projects — including some proposed mines upstream of communities in Southeast Alaska.

“The majority of this region is staked with mining claims,” said Breanna Walker with the group Salmon Beyond Borders, which has campaigned for stricter limits on mines near rivers that cross into Southeast Alaska.

Ten years ago, Gov. Bill Walker signed an agreement with the premier of British Columbia that he said would give Alaskans a greater voice in the future of B.C. mines. It led to the creation of a working group where senior officials from Alaska and B.C. would meet twice a year to discuss mining and the environment.

Breanna Walker says that was a reason for optimism — but she says in the years since, the Dunleavy administration has failed to live up to its commitments.

She pointed to a variety of issues, including the Dunleavy administration’s decision to discontinue water quality monitoring on cross-border rivers in 2021. Walker said she’d also like to see the meetings between provincial and state leaders include other stakeholders, like Alaska tribes and fishermen.

Additionally, Walker said the Dunleavy administration has failed to keep up the pressure on B.C. to clean up the Tulsequah Chief Mine upstream of Juneau that’s been polluting the Taku River for decades. And she said the state has failed to keep Alaskans informed about other mining activity and pollution upstream of Southeast — despite a portion of the agreement that says Alaskans should be notified.

Walker points in particular to pollution at a mine near Hyder, at the state’s southeastern tip.

“Alaskans learned about that pollution through the media. They did not learn about that from the state or from the province of British Columbia,” she said. “That’s a clear example, in my opinion, of how the state is abdicating the responsibility that they have to Alaskans.”

The Dunleavy administration disagrees. State officials point to webpages maintained by the state and B.C. detailing the ongoing work between the two governments. And they say the water quality monitoring that ended in 2021 duplicated similar efforts at the federal level.

Sam Dapcevich of the state Department of Environmental Conservation said the state has continued to advocate for Alaskans’ interests at working group meetings.

“DEC is fully engaged and working with our B.C. counterparts on activity awareness and status of projects,” he said.

Just last month, at the most recent cross-border meeting, Dapcevich said the Alaska delegation asked for an update on the cleanup of the Tulsequah Chief Mine. And in response, the company working on cleanup is planning to hold a public webinar on Wednesday.

“I just want people to understand that our agencies are deeply involved between the two governments, advocating for cleanup, and we’re using shared science to protect these rivers,” he said.

Dapcevich said the state remains committed to ensuring Alaskans’ voices aren’t lost in the process.

Some Southeast residents put up Christmas decorations over Thanksgiving weekend. The centerpiece, of course, is the tree.

The U.S. Forest Service allows each household to cut down one Christmas tree from the Tongass National Forest per year. Julia Spofford is the assistant director at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. No permit is required, but she said residents should follow a few key guidelines to protect ecosystems.

“We don’t want to do any trees within, you know, 330 feet of bald eagle nests, or 100 feet of salmon streams or 100 feet of roads or trails,” she said.

She said to only take a tree that’s seven inches in diameter or smaller, and to cut as low to the ground as possible.

“We ask that you avoid muskeg as well, just because the regeneration in those areas is difficult for trees to establish,” Spofford said.

Some helpful things to bring are a hand saw, sled, cord to wrap the tree and a tape measure.

Tree harvesters will see a lot of western hemlock and Sitka spruce. Spofford explains the difference in terms of Christmas-tree quality.

“Hemlocks are really soft, but they also have kind of very flexible branches,” she said. “So if you’ve got a lot of heavy ornaments — might not be a good choice — but if you’re likely to brush into your tree a lot or have small kids, it might be a nicer option, since it’s softer versus the Sitka spruce. Spruce has those spikier needles, but often have a little more conical of (a) shape.”

Spofford said it’s important to check Forest Service maps.

People can find Christmas trees by hiking out on the trails, but there are also a couple of accessible spots just off of Juneau’s road system. The first is along Glacier Highway between mile post 29 and 33. The second is up Fish Creek Road toward Eaglecrest Ski Area.

The Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area, Auke Recreation Area and Lena Beach are off-limits.

The City and Borough of Juneau also allows Christmas tree harvest on designated areas of city-owned land, including off of North Douglas Highway near Fritz Cove and False Outer Point, and off of Glacier Highway near Bridget Cove.

The city’s regulations differ slightly from the Forest Service policy. Harvesters must still avoid muskeg and cut the tree at its base. But discarded branches must be scattered and trees must be cut more than 50 feet from a hiking trail and more than 25 feet from any body of water.

A controversial mineral exploration project north of Haines has changed hands twice in the last year. That included earlier this month, when Vizsla Copper purchased the Palmer Project in exchange for $15 million of its company stock.

Steve Masterman currently serves as deputy director of the Alaska Critical Minerals Collaborative at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Before that, he was the state geologist.

The Alaska Desk’s Avery Ellfeldt caught up with Masterman to discuss what’s been happening with the project, which has been under exploration by Constantine Mining since 2006. He said projects like this can move quickly or take decades to become mines, for a lot of different reasons.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Steve Masterman: Well, it’s all across the spectrum. You know, some of them go pretty quickly, like Fort Knox and Pogo went pretty quickly in a relative sense, and then other ones take many decades. Donlin is another example. And some of them never become mines, even though they look very promising for a long while, for various reasons. Could be economic reasons, could be environmental reasons, could be social reasons. Could be all of the above.

Avery Ellfeldt: The project has changed hands a few times in the last year or so. Could you speak to whether that’s a pretty normal progression in terms of these exploration projects changing hands pretty frequently?

Steve Masterman: I think it is fairly common. I mean, this has happened to this one several times. You see other properties, the Nickel Platinum Group property in the Alaska Range, has changed hands several times. The Johnson property on the Alaska Peninsula — sorry, Cook Inlet — has changed hands several times. So it does happen. And, you know, I think if the project is more compelling, it happens less.

Avery Ellfeldt: My other question would be do these types of transactions necessarily mean anything about a project’s viability or economic feasibility? Anything else you’d add there?

Steve Masterman: There’s reasons that people back out, obviously. And I don’t know what the reasons are that the latest groups backed out of the Palmer Project, but they had a reason. Sometimes those reasons are that they’re not a good fit for the company at its current stage. So it might not speak necessarily to the project itself. It might in some cases have a lot more to do with the corporation and how their overall business is being managed and their portfolio of projects.

Avery Ellfeldt: Could you walk me through why projects like these are attractive from an investor point of view, given that they operate over such long timelines and so many never come to fruition?

Steve Masterman: It’s a risk and reward equation. These are riskier investments, that’s for sure. And so investors have to look at it pretty critically and analytically to see whether they think it’s worth rolling the dice on, essentially.

Avery Ellfeldt: They’ve kind of cited the Trump administration’s orientation toward mining in Alaska as a potential boon for the project. I’m curious if you could speak to that, whether the current administration’s mindset or approach could actually benefit a project that’s at this stage of exploration?

Steve Masterman: The current administration definitely has a pro-development stance. I think that’s pretty obvious. So they’re going to be leaning favorably toward mineral development projects. But whether this thing gets to that point within this administration is an open question. And I would guess, in three years, they’re not going to be ready to apply for permits. So whatever will happen, in a permanent sense, will probably happen in a future administration.

Avery Ellfeldt: One of the local tribes, the Chilkat Indian Village, has made it pretty clear that they’re not in support of this and that the new owner won’t be able to receive social license or community support. Would you say that’s pretty common with exploration projects in Alaska, specifically?

Steve Masterman: I think it’s common with mineral development projects globally. The problem the industry has is its perception. And I think the industry is working hard to change that perception, but it takes a while.