Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Business as usual will get us the kind of degraded or nonexistent salmon runs and fishing industry of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.  The evidence is irrefutable. You just can’t have it all.  If you choose mining, logging, and large-scale industry, as a community we’ll witness the end of the great Chilkat salmon runs and our subsistence.  The Chilkat is one of the most pristine rivers in the world. 

Our community needs to evaluate what we want our future to look like. We should look at communities where Constantine/Dowa have operated and other mining communities years after the corporations have taken what they wanted.   Did they uphold their promise not to pollute the watershed? Did the communities benefit over the long term?  Overwhelmingly, the evidence is negative. 

Constantine/Dowa don’t care about our community or our fish. In the recent CVN article ’Japanese mining new hire,’ did they mention Haines or their well-intent? No!  Only the race to fulfill the corporation’s need for a wastewater permit. A permit that will allow them to pollute the Klehini and Chilkat watersheds. Once a permit is obtained and wastewater is discharged, the Chikat will be forever changed, and not for the better. Is this the future we wish to leave our children?  Toxic superfund sites like Skagway is facing? Where they’re unable to eat crab or shellfish from their waters because of mine dust discharge and elevated lead levels from their ore terminal? Alaska deserves better treatment. So do we. 

Mario Benassi