Army Corps extends comment period for IPOP application

By Diana Haecker
On Monday, May 10, the Alaska District of the Corps of Engineers issued a new public notice regarding the IPOP LLC permit application to mine for gold at Bonanza Channel. The notice says the Corps got the email of IPOP’s agent Bill Burnett wrong and printed in the original public notice Burnett’s email as billnurnett@yukuskokon.com when it should be billburnett@yukuskokon.com.
The public can comment on the proposed project until June 1. "The comment period was extended due to a request from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A 15-day extension was granted to balance providing additional time to review the information with moving forward in processing the application," said Tiffany Kwakwa, project manager with the Corps, in an email to the Nugget.
The core of the proposal, though, has not changed. IPOP LLC has submitted numerous applications to the Army Corps, which regulates mines that deposit material into waters of the United States. The latest proposal that triggered the April 16 notice to the public seeks Corps approval for mining and conducting a case study at the same time.
IPOP wants to discharge nearly 4.9 million cubic yards of dredged material into 195 acres of water in Bonanza Channel over six years. The public notice —which as any other notices dealing with IPOP, has not been advertised in this newspaper of record —  says that IPOP seeks a permit to discharge the material “to gather scientific information and mine for gold by constructing and maintaining an access channel, dredge disposal areas and mining channel, and constructing a man camp in approximately 1.2 acres of uplands.”
The project aims to be located at mile 28.5 of the Nome-Council Highway, before the Bonanza bridge.
The Audubon Society created an action alert on their website where people can go to formally request a public hearing regarding the IPOP proposal.
“Safety Sound is one of Audubon Alaska’s Important Bird Areas (IBA), first identified in 1981 as a state IBA because it houses huge colonies of nesting Aleutian Terns,” the Audubon Society site states. “It is also summer foraging grounds for Tundra Swans and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds making Safety Sound not only an important part of our global Pacific Flyway, but also a necessary resource for subsistence hunters from across northwestern Alaska, especially near the community of Nome. It is not an area to be disrupted by a mining operation such as the one IPOP is proposing.”
A request for comment from IPOP and its agent remained unanswered by press time.