Just what is Riversdale Alaska?

To the editor:

Riversdale Alaska just obtained the Chickaloon coal leases from the Alaska Mental Health Land Trust. It may open a large industrial coal mining operation in the Matanuska Valley.

The fear is that it is connected to Rio Tinto, one of the biggest mining companies in the world.

When the members of the Resource Committee of the trust were told that Riversdale Alaska was the highest bidder, Greg Jones, executive director of the Trust Land Office, said Riversdale Alaska was a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. He was told no, that it was a privately held company whose management team developed a Mozambique mine that Rio Tinto bought. Following this cursory explanation about the company, to which the trust intended to lease 10,000 acres of land directly adjacent to a residential community, the committee members asked no more questions and congratulated themselves on a task well done.

Now Mr. Jones is trying to dispel the suspicion that Rio Tinto is connected with Riversdale Alaska. In an article in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, Jones acknowledges that he originally thought Riversdale Alaska was Rio Tinto. But, he explains, the "guys that owned the company sold the company, but retained the rights to the name Riversdale. ... So the three guys that owned it go over and start a new company called Riversdale Resources."

Is Mr. Jones really saying that "three guys" owned Riversdale Mining and sold it to Rio Tinto? And then, without strings attached, Rio Tinto let the "three guys" use the name Riversdale.

In fact, Rio Tinto's takeover of Riversdale involved billions of dollars and, among other things, obtaining the significant interests of Brazilian steel company CSN and of India's TaTa Steel, a Fortune 500 company.

The "three guys" Mr. Jones says are owners of Riverside Resources - which, in turn, owns Riversdale Alaska - cannot, in any sense of the word, be said to have "owned" Riversdale Mining. They cannot be said to have sold it to Rio Tinto. TaTa Steel and CSN did sell their interests, but those major corporations can hardly be characterized as regular guys.

We could use an explanation.

Judy Donegan

Palmer