The move will extend the Admiralty Island mine's operations for up to 18 years, with new environmental mitigation and oversight.
Hecla Greens Creek Mine just got the green light for an expansion that could extend mine operations for up to another 18 years. The U.S. Forest Service officially permitted the project on Admiralty Island on Thursday.Greens Creek is now allowed to build more storage for tailings — the ground-up rock that’s leftover after the extraction of valuable metals like gold, zinc and silver. Juneau’s most prominent and profitable employers.
At Greens Creek, waste rock is temporarily stored in large outdoor piles before it is moved underground for long-term storage. That means there’s potential for fine particles containing heavy metals to blow off into the surrounding forest and waterways. That’s known as fugitive dust. New ideas proposed in the plan include misting the tailings piles with water to weigh down dust particles and reducing the amount of exposed tailings during the winter months, when blustery conditions might spread dust further. The Forest Service has even committed to measuring the dust to make sure the mine is cutting down on how much spreads.
Reece says the group is meant to introduce more transparency into the mine’s potential environmental impacts, especially near sensitive environments that communities like Angoon rely on for subsistence.
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