Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott and U.S. Sen Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, have finished a day of meetings in Ottawa with high-ranking Canadian officials.<\/p>\n
In a conference call with reporters, Mallott and Sullivan said most of the talks were related to issues involving Canadian mines near the Alaska border. <\/p>\n
“This is not some kind of anti-resource-development focus. We just think that we have some very legitimate concerns given that we are downriver from most of these mines in terms of what could happen,” Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
Fishermen and environmental groups are concerned about mine development in the coast range; spills of acid-generating mine tailings are a particular concern for fishermen who rely on salmon-bearing rivers that originate in Canada.<\/p>\n
Sullivan said he and the lieutenant governor had specific requests with regard to increasing opportunities for Alaskans to comment on Canadian mines, and the financial bonding requirements for mine-builders. A security bond issued by the constructor of a mine could pay for long-term water treatment after a mine shuts down, or for damages and cleanup if a disaster happens.<\/p>\n
The Tulsequah Chief Mine, on a tributary of the Taku River, has been leaking acidic drainage for almost a <\/a>decade<\/a>, and the issue of cleanup remains unsolved.<\/p>\n According to an itinerary provided by a Sullivan spokesperson, the senator and lieutenant governor met with Canada’s minister of natural resources, environmental minister, defense minister and minister of northern affairs in a series of meetings Monday. They also spoke with the commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, and the parliamentary secretaries to the ministers of fisheries and foreign affairs.<\/p>\n An additional series of discussions is expected in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott and U.S. Sen Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, have finished a day of meetings in Ottawa with high-ranking Canadian officials. In a conference call with reporters, Mallott and Sullivan said most of the talks were related to issues involving Canadian mines near the Alaska border. “This is not some kind of anti-resource-development focus. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[293,230,284],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-canada","tag-state-news","tag-transboundary-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19053"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}