Just recently a report came out about the social and economic effects of a mine in our community. I did read this report and I find it to be very biased and one sided. It described all male mine workers as trouble makers. I find this to be sexist, uninformed, inaccurate and speculative. Why would several hundred mine workers coming to Haines be any different than several hundred summer workers converging on Haines each year and why does this report shine a bad behavior light on just mine workers? It seems kind of negative to just one industry. The report also compared a mine here to the oil fields in North Dakota and the coal mines in Appalachia, which is in no way a comparison to this project. I also find this troubling because they did not use any mines in our state for comparison. I guess my question would be why wouldn’t you compare this to successful mines in Alaska? The most troubling aspect of this is that some professional people have publicly opposed something that has not even been proposed as a mine yet because of this clearly biased report. This makes me wonder if you are treated differently when you seek services from this group of professionals if you support something in the mining world. I believe this opens these professionals up to future liability claims for discrimination. I would also think that being a professional you would not base your opinion on just one source and that you would do a thorough research for the facts. I think it is reports like this that paint a bad light on just one industry and is just another attempt to divide our community and create animosity by groups who oppose the mining industry.
Jerry Lapp