The Kensington Story

The only operating metals mine in Southeast is the Kennecott-owned Greens Creek mine. Greens Creek Mine, located on Admiralty Island, is one of the nation's largest silver producers. It is also the largest private employer in Juneau with 268 employees and a 2001 payroll of $26 million, providing the highest-paying jobs of any large local employer. Current ore reserves contain recoverable metals estimated at 82 million ounces of silver, 628,000 ounces of gold, 675,000 tons of zinc and 225,000 tons of lead.

SeaCal, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sealaska Corporation, operates a high-brightness, chemical grade limestone quarry on Prince of Wales Island. Currently, the mine operates on a seasonal basis with a work force of from eight to fifteen people. Sealaska anticipates a substantial increase in the production level from the mine in the next several years. Material sites are located throughout Southeast to supply sand, gravel and crushed rock for road construction and for local use. However, a number of the sites also provide large volumes of material to major construction projects. The large material sites provide both jobs and revenue to local and regional economies.

Mining and/or exploration companies currently active in Southeast include Coeur at the former Kensington mine north of Juneau, Kennecott Exploration in the Duncan Canal area and Abacus Minerals Corporation at Niblack Anchorage. Coeur’s Kensington project is in the advanced stages of a feasibility analysis and when in production should generate employment figures comparable to those of the Greens Creek mine. The other three projects are in the drilling stage. At least three venture capital groups were actively exploring for gold or platinum group metals in Southeast during the 2000 field season. The primary areas of interest included the Duncan Canal area, Union Bay on the Cleveland Peninsula and the former Salt Chuck mine on Prince of Wales Island.

Published geology and mineral occurrence maps of the region strongly suggest that Southeast is richly endowed with a variety of mineral deposit types and commodities. Unfortunately, many of the high prospect areas have been compromised by federally mandated land withdrawals that preclude any mineral exploration or development. This fact has had a strong negative influence on the mineral industry’s ranking of Southeast as a favorable exploration field and will continue to be an impediment to the expansion of the mining industry in the region. On the more positive side, Sealaska Corporation, has selected lands that include strongly favorable mineral terrain and several former mining districts. The Sealaska lands are fee lands and are not subject to restrictions or procedures now common to exploration on public lands. Sealaska has demonstrated a willingness to explore and develop the mineral potential of the corporation’s lands.

In 1999, the Minerals section of the Bureau of Land Management (formerly the Bureau of Mines) contracted for an airborne geophysical survey of several large tracts of land on Prince of Wales Island. BLM, Sealaska Corporation, Ketchikan Gateway Borough, the cities of Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove and the State of Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys jointly funded the survey. Survey results were made public in August 1999. In the summer of 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey completed several months of fieldwork on some of the more promising areas identified in the survey and also commenced detailed studies on volcanic-related base metal deposits on Prince of Wales Island. The results will stimulate additional interest in exploration of the island. Favorable market forecasts and the recent price increases for base metals and platinum group metals should further stimulate interest in Southeast.



Back to top


Southeast Conference
P.O.Box 21989, Juneau, Alaska 99802-1989.
Phone: (907) 523-2310
Fax: (907) 463-5670
info@seconference.org

Copyright © 2002, Southeast Conference, all rights reserved.

Site designed by WebWeavers, LLC