A town hall meeting was scheduled for February 22 to learn about and discuss AIDEA’s proposal for an ore terminal on Lutak Inlet. As I understand it, that meeting was postponed because borough staff did not have the capacity at the time to facilitate a meeting with adequate opportunity for public participation. In lieu of that meeting, on April 22, Haines Chamber of Commerce organized a presentation to the Ports and Harbors Committee consisting of a slideshow by AIDEA, and generous opportunities for mining industry and their shills to weigh in outside of the public comment period. To make matters worse, the committee chair eliminated the first public comment period, and responded belligerently to a committee member’s concern. A Canadian mineral exploration company and mining industry shills were afforded more opportunity to weigh in than members of our community.
While our freight dock needs repair or replacement, expanding it into an ore terminal will contaminate Lutak Inlet, allow our highway and town to be overtaken by massive ore trucks, and plague our clean air with fugitive dust. We cannot let AIDEA manipulate our need for freight dock repairs in order to enrich Canadian and Japanese mining companies. An ore terminal would significantly impact our community—just look at the legacy contamination Skagway is grappling with. We need real opportunities for community discussion, not an industry-led dog and pony show. Putting all our eggs in the ore basket poisons everything else. Let’s keep that dirty ore out of Lutak Inlet.
Shannon Donahue