Min(e)d Your Metals: Inquiries into the Environmental Impact of Extraction

When most people think about climate change, the use of fossil fuels such as coal likely comes to mind. However, when it comes to mining, it is not just the product that harms people and the environment but also the process. Mining and extractive practices contribute to climate change, but they also do great harm to people directly and immediately. For example, the extraction of the coltan used in smartphones has led to highly publicized stories about child labor, war, and human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Less publicized examples include enormous damage done to Indigenous nations by the Red Dog zinc mine in Alaska, which, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Toxics Release Inventory, produces roughly 750 million pounds of pollution annually (Nobel 2018; Collins 2019), causing Alaska’s staggeringly high levels of environmental toxicity. Red Dog is responsible for the release of more toxins and pollutants than any other facility in the United States, earning Kotzebue, Alaska, the distinction of the “The Most Toxic Town in America” (Wernick 2019, 1). Although Red Dog distributes funds to the local community and pays fines related to violations of environmental policy, money is useless in the absence of clean water and healthy food sources or access to locations of cultural significance. More specifically, mining harms the environment in the following ways. First, fossil fuels are required to extract fossil fuels from the earth (Shaw 2010). According to a report issued by the Council of Alaska Producers (CAP) in 2010, 15.5 million gallons of fuel are required annually to operate Red Dog’s mining equipment (e.g., loaders, excavators, dozers, drills). Mining operations burn another 1.4 million gallons of fuel to transport machinery and material to and from the mine’s remote location. Notwithstanding the compounding effects of transporting these large quantities of fuel to Alaska, each gallon burned releases toxic pollutants into the air. Despite these significant ecological harms, Red Dog’s Subsistence Committee prides itself on growth and sustainability, advertising how the corporation works “cooperatively to share traditional knowledge that helps guide operations to help preserve the subsistence way of life and protect the lands” (Red Dog-Suvisi 2019, 2). In an attempt to mitigate public perception of Red Dog’s deeply problematic operations, Red Dog Mine has committed financial resources to address thawing permafrost (Herz 2020) as well as to offer fuel to locals at a discounted rate through a program entitled “Village Fuel Transfer.” Second, mining activities pollute water systems, dumping millions of gallons of wastewater into freshwater systems every day. For example, “In mountains outside the Montana capital of Helena, about 30 households can’t drink their tap water because groundwater was polluted by about 150 abandoned gold, lead and copper mines that operated from the 1870s until 1953” (Associated Press 2019). These households have been provided with bottled water as compensation, but bottled water is not a viable solution and the plastic vessels are themselves a scourge on the environment.