Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reached three settlements with Kensington gold mine totaling $534,500 for discharge violations documented in a 2015.

Kensington is an underground gold mine that’s operated 35 miles south of Haines since 2010.

In a joint inspection, the EPA and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) found violations including: 200 wastewater violations, unauthorized acid rock drainage into a nearby lake, and failure to report releases of a nitrate compound from 2013 to 2017, among others.

Beginning Aug. 1, DEC modified Kensington’s permit to allow for acid rock drainage into the tailing storage facility.

“A permit violation is not a justifiable change of a permit condition,” DEC spokesperson Laura Achee said. “In this case, Kensington expanded the treatment capacity and improved the overall treatment processes.”

As a result, the department increased discharge compacity in accordance with the Clean Water Act and state water quality standards.

Mine water discharges that are not controlled can harm water quality and ecosystems, according to EPA’s press release. “By introducing high concentrations of toxic metals or increasing sediment turbidity, fish can be harmed, and eggs can be smothered in stream bottom gravels. When introduced unchecked, high-velocity discharge water can also erode stream banks and cause or contribute to riverbank failure.”

Coeur Alaska Inc., which operates the mine, has received past violations.

In 2010, the EPA fined Coeur Alaska for the unauthorized discharge of acid rock drainage from 2006 to 2010 during dam construction. Coeur paid a $170,000 penalty as part of the settlement.

General manager at Kensington Mine, Mark Kiessling, said that while Couer Alaska has “good reason” to dispute many of the violations, it agreed to settle “rather than incur the expense and distraction of years of litigation.” He said that Kensington was “not made aware of any violations, alleged violations or potential violations as a result of the 2015 inspection (until) late April of 2018.”

Environmentalists in the Chilkat Valley say that state and federal agencies response to Kensington’s violations do not bode well for their concerns about the Palmer Project potentially contaminating nearby watersheds.

“Mining company claims about protecting the environment are developed by their public relations department and have little to do with reality.” said Gershon Cohen, director of Alaska Clean Water Advocacy group. “Coeur’s ads the past few years in the CVN and on KHNS prove the point.  While they’ve been telling Haines how much they care about our rivers and our community in their ads, they were committing hundreds of violations of their operations permits and DEC didn’t even know because instead of independently inspecting the facility, they were allowing the mining company to self-report.”  

Last week, five environmental groups and individuals asked the DEC for an informal review of a waste management permit for the Palmer Project it approved last month.

Their concerns claimed lack of proof that underground discharge of wastewater won’t connect to nearby tributary of the Chilkat River, that freezing temperatures will render the wastewater treatment systems ineffective in winter and that trigger limits for water quality standards exceed state levels.

Constantine’s spokesperson Liz Cornejo said that the company will be watching Kensington mine for any lessons that can be applied to the Palmer Project. “This is another example of how mining is heavily regulated in Alaska and how regulators take enforcement seriously,” she said.