Understanding the Fish Kill Incident at Kensington Gold Mine
On the morning of Aug. 9, state biologists discovered dozens of dead fish in a creek near the Kensington gold mine in Southeast Alaska.
Scientists from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game say their observations — and the fact that the die-off occurred downstream of a wastewater treatment plant at the large mine — suggest that the event stemmed from a water quality problem. Mine workers also used an unapproved explosive at Kensington a day before the dead fish were found, according to federal officials.
DEC’s Ongoing Investigation and Lack of Definitive Findings
But nearly two months later, state regulators at the Department of Environmental Conservation say they still haven’t determined what killed the fish, including Dolly Varden char, a small freshwater species called slimy sculpin, and one pink salmon.
DEC, which regulates mining wastewater and investigates chemical spills, is still waiting for water quality data from the mine’s operator, according to Gene McCabe, the director of the agency’s water division.
“Of course, everybody involved has hunches,” McCabe said. “They have thoughts. They have likely causes. But none of that is substantiated yet.”
Coeur, the multinational company that operates Kensington Mine about 40 miles north of Juneau, is “still awaiting results from multiple independent laboratories with varying timelines,” company spokesperson Rochelle Lindley said in an email this week.
She would not say exactly when Couer expects to receive results from the different labs.
Tribal governments and other observers in the area of the mine, meanwhile, say that they’ve received little information from state regulators.
Insights from Tribal Governments and State Officials
A few days after the incident, the U.S. Forest Service, a federal agency that manages the land around Kensington, notified leaders of the region’s largest tribal government, the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The agency also, a few days later, provided them with some preliminary information, according to Jill Weitz, who works in government affairs for Tlingit and Haida.
While Weitz said she appreciated the federal notification, she has been frustrated by what she described as a lack of communication from state agencies. Officials from Chilkoot Indian Association, another tribal government in the region, also said the state did not formally alert them to the spill.
It’s the second time this year that tribal officials have raised concerns about their access to information after an incident in the vicinity of Kensington.
Enhanced Communication Efforts and Concerns
In March, Tlingit and Haida’s president, Richard Peterson, urged state and federal regulators to improve communication after the tribe was not notified — for a month — about a January tailings spill at the mine, which appears to be unrelated to the August fish kill.
“The lack of timely communication and transparency in such matters undermines our ability to effectively respond and protect our tribal citizens and ancestral lands,” Peterson wrote.
The biologists from the Department of Fish and Game discovered the dead fish during a routine salmon survey in Sherman Creek, which flows into the Inside Passage between Juneau and the towns of Haines and Skagway to the north.
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