For more than a decade, Constantine Metals Resources (CMR) has played a public relations game with the communities of Haines and Klukwan, posing as a caring, majority controlling interest in the proposed copper-zinc mine known as the Palmer Project. Their goal was to convince us that the company’s concern for the Chilkat River Watershed and our rivers, fish, eagles, and way of life would guide the development of the mine and protect everyone’s interests into the distant future.
Of course this public relations campaign should never have been taken seriously for two reasons: (1) CMR is not a mining company -- at some point a major mining company was going to be brought in to design, develop and operate the project and any “promises” made by CMR to the community would no longer be worth the paper they were never printed on, and (2) although posing as the directors of the project’s day-to-day operations, CMR has never really been in charge because CMR doesn’t have money and doesn’t make money – they only spend money and that money has been coming primarily from a Japanese smelter-operator/mine-investor, DOWA Holdings Co Ltd.
Unable to raise sufficient funds outside of DOWA to operate and continue to claim majority ownership, CMR finally succumbed to the need for 2021 capitol and sold enough remaining shares to DOWA a few months ago so that the Japanese corporation is now officially the majority owner of the Palmer Project. Most of CMR’s core staff left the project a year or so earlier when the company spun off several gold prospects into a new company called High Gold. In March, one of the few remaining staff who had been running the local CMR public relations effort was let go. The company no longer has even the façade of a local presence in the Chilkat Valley.
So the curtain has finally parted, and everyone can now see the Japanese smelter operator behind the bells and whistles who has never been willing to have a conversation with the local community. It hasn’t been for a lack of trying on our part. ACWA hand-delivered a letter (in English and Japanese) (insert link) signed by numerous community leaders and business owners to the DOWA offices in Tokyo and Vancouver to try and initiate a dialogue with the company. There was no response, not even an acknowledgement the letter was received.
Meanwhile, CMR’s 2019 dye tracer study data the company claimed would show contamination from their operations wouldn’t harm nearby streams and creeks still has not been submitted to Alaska’s DEC or released to the public. After the SCOTUS Maui County v. Hawai’i Wildlife Fund decision, (insert link) which CMR and DEC hoped would justify their decision to not initiate a surface water discharge permit application went 6-3 to protect U.S. waters, CMR withdrew its wastewater treatment plan underpinning the existing State-authorized groundwater discharge permit. If CMR/DOWA submits a new treatment plan and receives quick approval from the State (which is likely given the mining industry’s control of DEC), they can immediately return to their previous plan to dig the entrance tunnel to the deposit under the Saksaia Glacier, creating a contaminated wastewater discharge of hundreds of thousands of gallons per day they are unlikely to ever be able to control.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…at least they haven’t made any promises they’ll be unwilling to keep.
More soon…