 SENATOR DENNIS EGAN State Capitol, Room 510 STAFF: Dana Owen Jesse Kiehl |
October 28th, 2009 Dear Neighbor,
Welcome to the first edition of my newsletter. I hope Legislative Corner will be a good way for me to communicate with you as Juneau’s State Senator. Here’s an update on recent issues facing Juneau, Southeast, and the state. Don’t miss the Kudos Juneau section, recognizing individuals for their contributions to our community. Managing Alaska’s natural resources is always a hot issue. Lately, I’ve been getting an education on resources by touring development projects around the state. A crash course in resource development Hydroelectric Power: Juneau’s Lake Dorothy Project Many Southeast communities are experiencing high energy costs, even though we live in a temperate rainforest rich with potential hydroelectric energy. At the annual meeting of Southeast Conference last month in Haines, leaders from around Southeast discussed long-term planning for a comprehensive Southeast electrical intertie. We can celebrate Juneau’s own Lake Dorothy project for adding 14.3 megawatts of energy to our community when it came online last month. This additional wattage ties into Juneau’s existing power supply providing a more stable energy source for Juneau and interruptible customers like the Greens Creek mine. Our intertie—and the recently complete Swan-Tyee intertie—are examples of how we can link our region’s communities through energy infrastructure. Of course, adding new power to our grid won’t be as effective if we continue to increase our energy consumption; energy conservation is crucial to sustainability. The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation’s Home Energy Rebate Program has been very popular and useful in Juneau for making private homes more energy efficient, thanks to recent increased appropriations by the Legislature. Southeast is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy resources. It’s always going to rain here, so let’s harness some of that potential to lower the cost of energy—and our reliance on diesel fuel—for ourselves and future generations.
Greens Creek & Kensington: Local Mines are a Jackpot for Local Jobs The crew boat ride to Greens Creek mine on Admiralty Island isn’t bad—it only takes 40 minutes – it’s the 5:00am departure that’s rough. For 90 Juneauites, though, that is the daily grind. Greens Creek continues to be Juneau’s largest private sector employer, infusing $46 million into Juneau’s economy annually. It’s an impressive operation.
The Kensington mine in Berners Bay adds another boost of good jobs to our local economy with the green light from the Army Corps of Engineers. The number of geologists, biologists, metallurgists, construction workers, and miners went from 18 to over 100 almost overnight. Expected opening is next July. Nearly 80% of the workers in both of our local mines are Alaskans and 60% are Juneauites. An important key to keeping these jobs local is training our workforce to be qualified for the mining industry. The Department of Labor has been working with the University of Alaska Southeast and local mines on a vocational training program in entry level mining safety and underground mining skills. The class has sixteen students and is in its third week. Pebble Mine: Resources at Odds I toured the Pebble Partnership’s copper, gold, and molybdenum prospect in Bristol Bay. Currently there are three drill rigs, three helicopters, and a supply yard in an impressively vast expanse of tundra. The proposed mine is BIG, much bigger than our Kensington and Greens Creek operations. The mine is in exploration phase only; final plans and permits are still pending. Pebble has polarized public opinion, so it was educational for me to see the site for myself. At the end of the day, we still don’t know enough to determine whether development of mineral resources in Bristol Bay is worth the risk to the salmon fishery. Oooguruk: North Slope Offshore Drilling Site Yes, count ‘em! There are three “o”s in the name of this drill site on Alaska’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Oooguruk comes from the Inupiat for bearded seal. Located just off the coast of the North Slope, 150 miles southeast of Barrow, this is an interesting place. Heavy bars protect facility doors from polar bears when they swim to the island from the mainland just eight miles away. The OCS holds a tremendous amount of natural gas and oil that can be piped down the reliable TransAlaska Pipeline System. Although renewable energy is becoming more important in our country, we will still rely on traditional fossil fuel sources during the transition. For this reason, I joined other legislators and signed a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar supporting OCS drilling and a proposed five-year leasing plan. OCS leasing would bring a lot of money to the U.S. Treasury and would bring jobs and economic activity to Alaska.
Thanks for reading Legislative Corner. I hope you’ll always feel welcome to contact my office, just call, write, or use one of the links at the top of this newsletter. Sincerely, Dennis Egan P.S. Please feel free to share Legislative Corner with your friends. Web Site: http://egan.aksenate.org/ |
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![[signed] Dennis Egan](http://www.aksenate.org/egan/newsletter_signature.jpg "[signed] Dennis Egan")