The community of Elim is interested in continuing a long-term project to establish a granite rock quarry or mining project. An informational meeting about the project took place on Thursday followed by a tri-party meeting with the Elim city council, tribal council, and the Elim Native Corporation.
Community member John Jemewouk expected that all three organizations would have the same response to the project, as they did in the past. “When they were working on it, all three organizations supported it,” said Jemewouk.
Some concerns have been presented in opposition to the Elim quarry, mostly related to the impact this could have on subsistence hunting near the ocean.
Jemewouk says, “the waters in front of the quarry side we depend on pretty heavily for hunting sea animals like beluga, ugruk, and crab.”
This potential quarry is being discussed now, but background work for this project has been going on for years. “It’s been sitting probably fifteen years on the shelf, and we’re just picking up where they left off,” says Jemewouk. Jemewouk says there is a tremendous need in the area for materials that could come out of this rock quarry, like dimension stone or rip-rap, which is used on shorelines to prevent water or ice erosion.
The fate of the quarry is still uncertain, and further meetings will be determined in the near future.
