By the end of the decade, a massive new graphite mine on the Seward Peninsula could enter operations. The critical mineral has numerous industrial uses and currently, the United States doesn’t produce any of it.
Thousands of miles away in Washington D.C., politicians have greenlit millions of dollars to help get the project off the ground. Last June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) put the project on a fast-track, potentially slashing years off its permitting timeline.
But in Brevig Mission, an hour boat ride from the project site known as Graphite Creek, some regional residents have a different perspective on the proposed mine.
As the last bits of daylight disappeared over the Bering Sea on Jan. 14, four-wheelers and snowmachines parked outside Brevig Mission’s multipurpose building. Inside, 56 people stopped by a sign-in sheet and filled rows of tables facing the front of the room.
“In May we were told that it would be a two or three year process for the permit, but they changed it,” Keith Conger, a Nome resident and consultant for Brevig Mission’s city, tribe and corporation told the room. “Federal government gave them a way to get it shortened, and so now it's down to one year or less.”
Back in November, over 150 Brevig Mission residents were in the same room for what Keith Conger hopes was just the first of many meetings. The group is forming a coalition of residents from nearby villages and environmental experts to oppose Graphite One, the Canadian company behind the project.
The November meeting coincided with a public comment deadline for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit application. KNOM has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the comments.
This time, the group drafted letters for a state permit that’s required alongside the federal permit before any construction on the mine can begin.
“I've talked to people for a long time, and people have told me their feelings, but if those feelings only stay right here in the village, then nobody finds out,” Keith Conger told the room. “And the idea is to get the rest of the state, the rest of the country, to listen to you.”
Keith Conger led the group through a refresher on the project, with an emphasis on the massive hole the open pit mine would leave in the side of the Kigluaik mountain range. When Graphite One released its feasibility study in early 2025, it doubled the width of its original pit design from about a half mile to just over one mile. Graphite One said the confirmed presence of valuable, high-grade graphite economically justified the expansion.
Annie Conger grew up in Brevig Mission and is serving alongside her husband, Keith, as a consultant to the village’s tri-entities. She says they’ve hired a California-based filmmaker to tell the story of Brevig Mission.
“We want to show people outside of where we live what we're fighting against, and that the resources that we use is the food we live off of,” Annie Conger said. “It's our food security we teach our generations ahead of us.”
Annie Conger said the mark the open pit mine would leave on the Kigluaik mountains is just one of her many concerns. She fears for potential contamination of the numerous waterways that wind through the mountain range down into the Imuruk Basin, a 17-mile-wide estuary that’s a known salmon spawning area.
Sacred land around the Imuruk Basin
Earlier in the day, Annie Conger sat alongside Elmer Seetot Jr. for an interview with two archeologists from HDR, Inc. The company has been contracted by Graphite One to produce a report detailing historic artifacts and resources near the proposed mine.
The archaeologists laid out a series of maps on the table with ancient items found by surveyors including rock rings, cairns, fire pits, and stone tools. Archaeologist Elliot Hubbard pointed to a berry-picking site recorded in a late 1970s Bureau of Indian Affairs survey, located near a proposed barge landing for the mine. He explained that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could designate the site as an area of potential effects, which would typically require a 150-foot buffer zone around it.
Annie Conger told the archaeologists that disturbing her ancestors' homeland, burial sites and tools was a big concern.
“We're living in a very different environment than they used to live. Think about the technology they had, those were their tools, those were the things that they lived and survived on,” Annie Conger said.
She said ancient sod houses – partially underground with thick grassy roofs – belonging to her Inupiaq ancestors can be found up and down the coastline of Western Alaska. If one were to be found, she urged the archaeologists to say a prayer and ask for forgiveness before disturbing any materials.
“I always think about my great grandmother, who grew up up there. What if that was her settlement that they built?” she said.
Annie Conger said much has changed in Brevig Mission since her great grandmother roamed the tundra for berries and fish. As World War II unfolded on the other side of the globe, the U.S. rushed to build airbases and supply caches in support of the war effort. Anchorage-based nonprofit Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) estimates some 700 sites were built in the decades that followed, all of which are polluted with a variety of toxic contaminants.
One such site is a former U.S. Coast Guard station just 12 miles from Brevig Mission across Port Clarence. In a December interview with KNOM, Bering Straits Native Corporation SVP of Growth and Strategy, Haven Harris, said the site is still in need of cleanup work valued between $50 and $100 million.
In her lifetime, Annie Conger said cancer rates in her home village have increased, leading to distrust from outside entities to adequately protect the environment.
“The only people who died while we were growing up were the elders, natural death, and you never hear of young people dying. It was just the older people,” Annie Conger said. “But now today it's a different age, and majority of it comes from cancer.”
When asked by the archaeologists how the project would affect Brevig Mission, Seetot turned his attention to President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order on the first day of his presidency calling on agencies to reverse "punitive restrictions" on state and federal lands in Alaska.
“I think the present White House Administration uses everything that Earth can provide without regard to people that provide all these resources, not only here but elsewhere downstate, Native Americans, they've been pretty much victimized over the past, since colonial times,” Seetot said.
‘More money is involved, conflict arises’
From the second row of tables, Frieda Southall quieted her energetic children to share her concerns on subsistence resources.
“If it does open, our food sources are going to be taken away from us, and the government is not going to supplement that,” Southall said. “It scares me, because look around how many of us probably made fish or moose or caribou or some kind of food that we put away throughout the year for dinner tonight?”
Several in attendance called out BSNC, which has invested $2 million into Graphite One. The regional corporation has the option to expand its investment to over $10 million and has brokered preferential hiring and deals for its shareholders and subsidiaries.
“If this project goes through and Bering Straits Native Corporation says you're going to get a bigger share or bigger dividend, how much?” Keith Conger asked the group.
“Is that gonna substitute the food that they're taking away from what that dividend is gonna pay out?” Southall retorted.
“You know the answer to that? Yeah, no, it's not going to,” Keith Conger said.
As the meeting winded down, Keith Conger directed the room toward a map laid out on a table, and asked them to mark locations they subsist and recreate at. Before the meeting adjourned, the outspoken elder, Seetot, got one final word in.
“One of the good things about money is it can be used for other purposes, but that's the thing that pretty much I got from elders. More money is involved, conflict arises. Listen to the elders. Keep what they try to teach you, because this is what they learned.”
The deadline to submit comments for the state permit is Feb. 2.
