Red Dog Mine

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation reported the spill of up to 400,000 gallons of water used at a large lead and zinc mine in Northern Alaska early Wednesday. According to the department, the spill of “process water” occurred at about 2:30 a.m. at the Red Dog Mine, located around 80 miles north of Kotzebue.

Last week, the Army Corps of Engineers approved key permits that Teck needs to begin building an exploration road to the deposits, which would cross 20 acres of wetlands.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced earlier this week that it had reached a settlement with the operators of the Red Dog Mine for nearly two dozen hazardous waste violations.

The two deposits Teck wants to explore are on state land, which could mean less mining revenue for NANA. The deposits, called Anarraaq and Aktigirug, are farther below the surface and would require underground mining, instead of the open pit mining Red Dog currently uses.

“It wasn't very subtle. It looked to me like they had clearly reacted to the road,” Dau said. “Caribou that were far from the Red Dog road, they had no delay at all.”Dau said that’s a big deal, because those 18 collared caribou that struggled to cross the road, each of them were moving with the herd and represented about 80,000 animals.

A federal investigator is still at Red Dog Mine to determine the nature of the accident in their final report. To date, this is the sole fatality report the federal mining safety authority has filed on Red Dog.

The village tribal president says the individual and their family are in medical isolation, and the local school will be entirely remote.

This week, Teck announced that employees are allowed to return to their home communities under the conditions that they test negative for COVID-19