Open letter responding to Clynt Nauman’s, CEO of Alexco Resource Corp., letter published 8 December:
Thank you for your open letter to Yukoners to let us know how you see the relationship between Keno City and your company, Alexco.
But I guess we have to “untwist” some of your comments to set the facts straight.
To keep this letter short I will just pick a few points you made:
Â¥ Lot 960: you write, “After purchasing the property through the court, we found that we have inherited a historic ownership dispute.”
Well Nauman, these four residences didn’t pop up out of the blue. It must have slipped your mind when you and the receiver, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Inc., came to meet with us in 2005 we talked about this issue.
So when the court approved the purchase in 2006 you were fully aware of those four homes on lot 960.
Â¥ The haulage road over four residences:
When we met with Alexco a few months ago, we brought up the haulage road we discovered in one of the appendices of the Bellekeno Mine Development Proposal submitted to YESAB. When confronted about it, Rob McIntyre told us he was quite angry that this tradeoff study was submitted.
However, such a road couldn’t have come out of the blue à somebody must have thought it out, somebody must have drawn it, and somebody in Alexco must have approved it à otherwise it wouldn’t have been a document submitted to YESAB with Alexco’s name on it.
Although I asked Alexco to tell us in writing that they will not consider such a road, Alexco has never done so.
In order to make the most money you decided to build a mill facility right at the edge of our town, despite our objections.
How can we trust you that you will not build such a haul road when it suits you, saves you money, or for whatever other reason?
You made it quite clear that you don’t care about us, our town and our future.
Â¥Tourism: Nauman, you say, “We believe it (Alexco’s activities) will bring tangible benefits to local tourism…” Well, being in the tourism business for over two decades, I think it is difficult to sell “wake up to the sound of rock crushing, listen to the ore trucks rolling by,” to tourists, to whom we marketed Keno as a quiet and tranquil remote community.
So what if you are wrong?
Will you personally see that we get compensated for our lost livelihood and the dollars we invested in tourism infrastructure?
Â¥ Mine and Mill: Regardless of Alexco’s mantra that we, the concerned residents of Keno City oppose mining, I want to repeat we are not opposed to mining in our district. We are opposed to the closeness of
the new crusher/mill/ tailing facility (less than 800 metres from residences).
Â¥ Mitigation: Nauman, you wrote, “We believe we’ve put forward a concerted effort in the form of mitigative measures ...”
a) Bypass road: it was only recently, after our strong objection to Alexco’s attempt to run ore trucks directly through town, that you à once again à took this option back.
b) You wrote, “We will limit our ore haulage and crushing operations to day shift only.”
Nauman, will you guarantee these will be the hours of operation during the lifetime of that mill site, even when you are mining other ore bodies in our neighborhood?
And last but not least: You say that you want to be a “good and peaceful neighbour,” but you still haven’t answered our question:
a) Why didn’t you consult/involve us in your mill/crusher location planning?
b) Why aren’t we, the only directly affected community, part of the closure planning? It is not enough to come talk at us à we require funding to hire an independent expert of our own choice to represent us in this process.
If you were really interested in being a good neighbour you would contribute funding for this, and you would ask Yukon government to contribute as well.
We have met with you Alexco, but you don’t treat us as people you have to à or want to à listen to.
Insa Schultenkotter
Keno City