A Department of Defense (DOD) decision to award Graphite One a $37.5 million technology investment agreement grant for a mine in the Imruk Basin on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula without any tribal consultation is again sparking concerned from three Native villages in the region.
DOD, in fact, later increased the grant to $49.8 million to cover additional costs.
The Native villages of Teller, Brevig Mission and Mary’s Igloo released a statement on Aug. 12, noting that operators for the Graphite One mine have already begun exploration activities that impact subsistence and other activities, including removal of up to 65,000 gallons per day of water from several salmon bearing streams that drain the Graphite Creek property.
Daily helicopter and other motorized activity are harassing wildlife and drilling, road exploration and stream crossing, the tribal entities said. They also claim heavy equipment impacts drinking water and fish and wildlife habitat.
“We are a small voice up against the federal and state government’s actions to give the mining industry whatever it wants for the sake of critical minerals,” wrote Jenny Lee, president of the Native Village of Teller, in a letter on July 3 to Halimah Naiieb-Locke, deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base resilience. “This place is our home and we rely on the Imuruk basin for hunting and fishing and drinking water. What happens to us when those uses are gone?”
The Imruk Basin is an area of about 90 square miles, a long shallow estuary on the Seward Peninsula. The estuary’s drainage basin is fed by the Kuzitrin, Kruzgamepa, Agiapuk and Cobblestone rivers and is drained by the Tuksuk Channel, which empties into the Pacific Ocean.
The Imruk Basis historically was a strategic waterway for early Inupiat, providing access to the Bering Sea from the Seward Peninsula’s interior.
The DOD awarded the Graphite One grant in July of 2023. In October of last year, the Native villages of Teller, Brevig Mission and Mary’s Igloo sent a letter to DOD asking for a consultation, noting that the department’s own guidelines call for consultation whenever tribal interests are affected by federal actions. The Alaska-specific implementation instruction for those guidelines states that “because of extensive renewable resources, cultural, and religious interests in Alaska, which are not limited to Indian land, notification of any [Department] activity will be provided to Tribes in the area potentially affected by the activity.”
Lee said the tribal entities never received a response from DOD. The tribal letter also included a request that the Kigluaik Mountains be designated as a traditional cultural property under the National Historic Preservation Act.
Following a lack of response and a DOD decision to increase its share of grant expenditures to $49.8 million to facilitate the accelerated completion of the feasibility study — the Tribes recently sent a follow-up letter, again requesting a consultation.
“Because DOD failed to abide by its own consultation requirements, the Native Village of Teller has been deprived of an opportunity to have a voice in government decisions directly impacting our communities and ways of life,” they said.
