The plan for a large-scale graphite mine on the Seward Peninsula is moving incrementally forward. Vancouver-based mining company Graphite One Resources held another round of meetings with residents of Brevig Mission, Teller, and Mary’s Igloo this week to review their plans and begin planting the seeds for a subsistence advisory council to the mine.
For several years, the company has been conducting exploratory drilling near the Imuruk Basin, north of the Kigluaik Mountains. Graphite One Executive Chairman Doug Smith says the past year’s drilling has provided “sufficient resources to develop a mining plan and preliminary economic assessment.” Previous estimates put the grade of the deposit at 5.7 percent graphite. That confidence interval has been upped to over 6 percent.
“Basically, you take 18 million tons and 6 percent of that is graphite, so we have over a million tons of graphite within the deposit. That’s what we would be ultimately mining,” said Smith.
But whether the deposit is economical won’t be known until this fall, when the preliminary economic assessment (or PEA) is released. Graphite naturally occurs in crystalline flakes of varying sizes, which Operations General Manager David Hembree says can be used for different end products.
“The fine particles are used for lubricants for locksmiths and stuff like that, whereas the coarse flakes are used for making batteries and other higher-end products,” said Hembree.
Metallurgy studies done this past winter will continue, and Hembree says things are looking good.
“There’s some actually exciting things about the graphite here in Graphite Creek which could be unique, and we need to do more study to look at those properties and how they would affect our end product and the economics of the deposit,” said Hembree.
But as previously murky details about the deposit’s value become clear, so, too, do communities’ concerns. Joy Huntington, a consultant to Graphite One, says they’ve brought on Walter Sampson to advise the team on community engagement. Sampson has over 40 years of experience with NANA, serving as liaison to the Red Dog Mine Subsistence Committee.
“They come together and visit the site if there’s a concern. They’re very active and involved,” said Huntington. “So that’s something we have, from the beginning, wanted to model after. If there are best practices around the state for effective involvement of communities, then we don’t need to necessarily reinvent the wheel.”
Huntington says they’ve started the nomination process by collecting names from tribal corporations, traditional councils, city councils and elders in Teller, Brevig, and Mary’s Igloo.
Cora Ablowaluk is the Mary’s Igloo Tribal Coordinator. She met with Graphite One representatives in Teller this week, but says it just feels like a repeat of meetings last fall.
“I don’t feel like they’re hearing the concerns. You know, they’re telling us they are. They came with their PowerPoint and they said, ‘This is what you said last time we were here, and we remember what you said,’ but they still couldn’t answer our questions,” said Ablowaluk.
Frustrating residents further, Ablowaluk says only half the people there were given a chance to speak.
“And we told them, ‘We can sit here all night, and we can tell you all of our concerns and how it’s going to impact the people of Teller, Mary’s Igloo, Nome, and Brevig Mission,'” said Ablowaluk. “If they just allowed us the time to have with them, instead of coming into our village and saying, ‘We need to leave by this time, what are your concerns?’”
With this track record, Ablowaluk is skeptical that the Subsistence Advisory Council will have much voice in the project.
For Kawerak Subsistence Director Brandon Ahmasuk, it’s good to create an advisory board, but that board needs the power to halt mining activity if something goes wrong. He’s already heard concerns that helicopter activity has driven birds from the area, and subsistence users aren’t getting as many eggs as in the past.
If the mine does move forward, he acknowledges a lot of money will be generated.
“But again, it’s at what cost? For myself, there’s no amount of money that can ever replace that. Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” said Ahmasuk.
Mary’s Igloo, Teller, and Brevig residents will wait for more information from Graphite One, as the mining company continues its environmental assessments. They’ve hired an environmental coordinator who will join the team on site this summer to meet with subsistence groups and give updates on permitting.
