Village takes coal plea to UN

CHICKALOON — The Chickaloon Native Village, in its efforts to stop the Wishbone Hill coal mine, has taken its complaints to the United Nations.

“It’s a human right and you take human rights complaints to the United Nations, as far as I know, especially when it’s made against a country,” said Chickaloon Village Tribal Chief Gary Harrison.

The coal mine, proposed for land Usibelli Coal Mine has leased near Buffalo Mine Road, has been the subject of hot debate ever since the mine announced it would be looking into the feasibility of extracting the coal last spring. The debate heated up when Usibelli announced it had found a buyer for any coal it would extract and then began plans to build an access road to explore the lease.

Harrison said the village has so far felt ignored in the process. State and federal governments aren’t listening to the village’s concerns.

“One of the things that they’re supposed to do, that the (Environmental Protection Agency) is supposed to do, is work with us on a government to government basis, and the state of Alaska doesn’t even recognize us so how can that happen?” Harrison said.

The village’s concerns center mainly on water. The human right cited in a press release announcing its intent to take the case to the U.N. is the right to water and sanitation. The village said it has filed a communication with the U.N.’s Independent Expert on the human right to water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, who is visiting the U.S. right now with stops in Washington, D.C., Boston and northern California.

The village is worried that any effort to mine coal in the area would be detrimental to Moose Creek and other waterways. The village cites lasting damage to local Native tribes from coal mining in the area in the early 1900s.

“The tribes’ long years of effort to restore its culture, subsistence, language, health and ecosystems, including its waterways, will be severely undercut if not nullified by the proposed new mining,” the village writes in its press release.

For its part, Usibelli said opposition from local Native groups is nothing new.

“Members of the tribe did make it clear that they would do everything they could to stop the Wishbone Hill Project,” said Usibelli spokeswoman Lorali Carter. “This isn’t completely surprising. However, certainly the appeal to the United Nations to stop development is a new tactic that we have not seen before.”

Carter has said in previous interviews that to cite damage done in the 1900s is unfair. Mining practices have improved substantially since then. Usibelli believes it has proven that it can mine safely in the area without disrupting the water and nearby ecosystems.

“This project has collected nearly 30 years of scientific data and that data has gone into our permits and clearly the state of Alaska agreed with our finding that there would not be contamination to groundwater, drinking water and that’s why they issued our permits,” Carter said.

She said, essentially, that the village has not backed up its claims that the mine will cause local residents harm.

“They don’t have any data to show that harm is going to be done, but we have data that shows that harm will not be done,” she said.

As for what could come of the complaint to the U.N., Harrison said he hopes it will halt Usibelli’s plans.

“The best case scenario would be for them to say, ‘hey man, you can’t do this, you can’t destroy the clean water this way because it’s a human right,’” Harrison said.

But Carter said she’s not so sure the U.N. has that power.

“It’s something that we’re looking into. We’re doing the research to see if there could be ramifications,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.