Dirty gold but no Sarah Palin... yet

Coeur Alaska Inc, owned by Idaho based Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation, has struck gold at Kensington mine, about 45 miles from Juneau.

The company had planned to pile its leftover debris on a wetlands on the other side of the mountain from Berners Bay - a solution embraced by environmentalists - but has shifted to a cheaper alternative. Taking advantage of a little publicized regulatory change adopted under the Bush administration in 2004, Coeur d'Alene Mines has obtained a federal permit to dump 4.5 million tons of tailings directly into a small sub-alpine lake near the mine, just above Berners Bay.

Surrounded by forest and important wetlands, Lower Slate Lake is situated on a terrace at an elevation of 650 feet in the Tongass National Forest. Slate Creek flows from the lake about three miles downstream into Berners Bay. Berners Bay is one of Southeast Alaska's most outstanding public resources. Berners Bay encompasses a wide range of ecosystems, including snow-capped alpine peaks, old-growth Sitka spruce and hemlock forest, cottonwood floodplains, freshwater marshes, and saltwater estuaries. Opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, gathering, kayaking, air boating, and camping abound, and commercial tourism in Berners Bay has increased in recent years.

In the spring, swarms of tiny eulachon rush in to spawn, and the bay floods with hundreds of killer whales, humpback whales and sea lions in hot pursuit, along with eagles and seabirds by the thousands. Fishermen flock to its herring, salmon and Dungeness crab.

The issue is before the U.S. Supreme Court. Environmentalists sued to halt the practice, saying dumping the mine tailings in the lake would be detrimental to the local flora, kill fish and affect other wildlife. A federal appeals court blocked the permit, saying the dumping is barred by stringent Environmental Protection Agency requirements under the Clean Water Act of 1972.
Conservationists say the plan is unprecedented in 30 years of mining under the federal Clean Water Act.

The Kensington case is getting close attention in Alaska due to its likely consequences for much bigger mining projects, such as Pebble, a massive and controversial copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska. They wish to dump their toxic waste in Bristol Bay.

The court's decision in the case could set a national precedent for how mining waste is disposed in the streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands.

The nearby city of Juneau, Native Alaskan leaders and Governor Sarah Palin have hailed the project as a godsend for a region desperate for jobs amid logging cutbacks, the closure of two big pulp mills and dwindling fishing opportunities.

I have nothing against mining, it provides jobs and brings money into an area that needs it.

But why do the big mining companies have to cut corners and try to dump their waste in sensitive areas in a move to maximize their already large profits? What happened to responsible mining?

I'm not going to accuse Sarah Palin on this occasion, she hasn't said or done anything controversial... yet.

Links
LA Times, ADN, No Dirty Gold
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Sarah Palin's toxic one track mind

Sarah Palin says goodbye to Senator Kim Elton, who's moving to Washington DC, having accepted the job of Director of Alaska Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Interior:

“Senator Elton pledged his allegiance to President Obama last summer. We wish him well as he moves on and hope that he uses this job for Alaska’s benefit - to advance the state’s oil and gas issues, including the natural gas pipeline, and to work diligently to remove the barriers imposed upon all states that want to open up their shores to off-shore drilling. I hope he can represent Alaskans by opening ANWR, conveying the importance of responsible mining development, and building roads­ ­- all issues crucial to the future of our state.”

• Off-shore drilling, ANWR drilling, roads to drilling.

• Pipeline pipeline pipeline pipeline pipeline. Roads to the pipeline.

• Responsible mining. Mmmmm...

The beneficiaries: big oil companies, Pebble Mine.

They carry out their business in a very responsible way: frequent oil spills on the North Slope, which Sarah hopes to extend off-shore and to ANWR, toxic dumping in Cook Inlet, Bristol Bay and anywhere else that takes their fancy. Sarah will always do whatever she can to prevent any threatened species from being protected. She will ignore evidence that toxic dumping poisons the salmon consumed by families, causing health problems that lead to birth defects.

That's the price Alaskans pay for Sarah Palin's allegiances.

Links to previous posts
ANWR, Toxic Governor, SP toxic as ever, Big Oil 1, Big Oil 2, Wildlifegate
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Basic human dignity

I gathered a bit more information about Berry L Jack. He is a 47 years old Native American who suffers from diabetes and is bi-polar. Mr Jack was charged with one count of theft and several counts of forgery. All counts of forgery were dismissed by the prosecution and he was convicted on the one count of theft. I don't know what sentence he received or if he's still in prison.

Mr Jack claims he doesn't have any family, and says he had only a cat as a companion when he lived in Valdez.

What happened to him when he entered the prison system, not as a convicted criminal, but simply to await trial?

He was placed in a cell with an extremely violent individual who turned him into his plaything for three days. When the assault was reported he received some immediate treatment for his injuries and was tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Specialist therapy was recommended to help him deal with the mental effects of the assault. That was not forthcoming. He tried to get help, wrote to the state governor, you know how it went. So he sued a couple of people in the hopes of being awarded a fat compensation.

His papers disappeared, court documents sent to him were returned stating that no forwarding address was given. The case was dismissed because of his lack of response.

We have only his word for most of this sorry saga. But I believe the last piece of the puzzle is quite telling. How can a person residing in a state prison simply leave without giving a forwarding address? If the facility can't keep track of the inmates, what hope is there of keeping more dangerous individuals secure behind bars?

No, Mr Jack had not escaped or moved to Florida without telling anybody. He appeared in court in August, two months after his case against Sarah Palin was dismissed. They managed to find him for that. How come they couldn't find him to deliver his mail?

I'm not writing this to keep the spotlight on Mr Berry as an individual or as some kind of freak show. I'm using his story to illustrate what can happen to vulnerable people who find themselves in the custody of an insensitive institution. People are sent to prison to pay for their crimes, not to be stripped of their human dignity.

I can see that some people might argue that a number of prisoners don't deserve to have their dignity preserved due to the nature of their crimes. The way I see it, if all prisoners are treated with the same basic respect as human beings, their sentences will take care of the punishment. We don't need prisons to dispense punishment with varying degrees of brutality to fit the nature of the prisoners' crimes. If we condone that we become dehumanised ourselves.

Some people in prison right now are very vulnerable individuals. The lonely, the mentally ill, the ethnic minorities are all at the mercy of dangerous prisoners and of the system, if the system is itself uncaring. It was very easy place Mr Jack in danger, to ignore him when he asked for help, it was easy to lose him when he tried to assert his civil rights.

Looking at the way the prisons in Alaska are managed, where neither inmates nor staff have their safety or health safeguarded, there must be many more Berry Jacks being tossed to one side, becoming impossible to access because their mail is not delivered to them and having their basic needs and rights ignored.

The sad thing is, when they leave prison, they may continue to be tossed to one side by society.

Link to previous related post.
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Sarah Palin's board games

Last Friday the Board of Game started examining proposals that will affect subsistence hunters. The board consists mainly of sport hunting enthusiasts and people with ties to commercial hunting.

Since taking office in 2006, Sarah Palin sought to invalidate determinations the Federal Subsistence Board had made regarding customary and traditional uses of game through the courts. If successful, sport and commercial hunting groups would have been the winners. The first legal challenge, concerning the Ahtna Indian people in Chistochina, was rejected by the federal district court, but an appeal was lodged and heard in August 2008. (State of Alaska x Federal Subsistence Board)

The state of Alaska was clutching at straws in their efforts. Among other inane arguments, they came up with this one:

Alaska contends that the instant Customary and Traditional determination places restrictions on nonsubsistence taking because granting Chistochina residents a federal subsistence priority to take moose throughout Game Management Unit 12 increases moose taking and thus necessitates greater conservation efforts by the state.

Excuse me! They argue that giving priority to subsistence hunting discriminates against other types of hunting and puts the state under further pressure in their conservation efforts??? Are they trying to say that sport and commercial hunting conserve the moose population and subsistence hunting is the real culprit for the decline in the numbers of moose??? Are they completely insane?

The state of Alaska lost the appeal.

But the problems of the Ahtna natives are far from over.

Ken Johns, president of the Glennallen-based Ahtna Corporation, told the board that subsistence hunters in the region are being attacked with "meaningless restrictions" that make it harder for them to get meat and that he's seen evidence of discrimination.

"It really came to a head this year when we were told to cut the horns in half, which we did, but then the 40-mile caribou hunters coming through Glennallen with these big tracks... they didn't have any restrictions," he said. "It's been tiring. People keep coming every year and pouring out their hearts, and things just seem to be getting worse and worse and worse,"

Ahtna board member Nick Jackson supports a plan that would give Ahtna a set amount of hunting permits that the corporation would distribute throughout villages in the region. We need to solve this Ahtna situation up there, so they know that they're going to be able to hunt and get some traditional hunting activities allowed up there," he said.

But there are legal obstacles, he said, that prevent the state from giving permits to a single group of people. "We're going to try to work around that, but it's something we've been battling for at least 10 years."

Sarah Palin's Board of Game works very hard at placing obstacles, legal or otherwise, between Alaska Natives and their food.

Links
Alaska x Federal Subsistence Board, click here.
For news articles, commentary and further links about the Board of Game, click here.

Sarah Palin's Prisongate

Joe Schmidt

The Alaska Correctional Officers Association gave the state corrections commissioner Joe Schmidt a “no confidence” censure vote on Tue, April 22, 2008. ACOA union members voted 514 to 19 against Schmidt.

The allegations just won't stop coming from disgruntled employees and prison inmates, all directed at the state Department of Corrections.

Overcrowded prisons, a drug-resistant skin infection being passed around the prisoner population and a no-confidence vote for Commissioner Joe Schmidt are among the problems the state agency faces.

Everyone agrees Alaska's jails are filled beyond capacity. But there are differing opinions about whether the state is doing enough to keep the facilities safe and clean.

Anchorage Correctional Complex was built to house 853 inmates but now holds far more. There are more inmates than ever at the complex. Alaska Correctional Officers Association, which represents officers, says the state is reducing the number of guards patrolling the jails.

Schmidt and his deputy commissioners claim the union is playing dirty to get what it wants: more control over the department and its management. "I felt bullied."

Schmidt says he has made a lot of difficult changes since being appointed at the end of 2006 -- reducing overtime, promoting rehabilitation programs, and pushing aggressively for ways to reduce costs and the state's staggering 60 percent of offenders who end up back in jail. .

Governor Sarah Palin has said he has her unconditional support.


Rebecca Bingham

Rebecca Bingham is the Department of Corrections Clinical Director.

MRSA, a drug-resistant staph infection, is rampant behind bars in Anchorage. The guards say the administrators are not doing enough to keep them safe in the state's overcrowded prisons. They say the department won't acknowledge dangerous health issues, like constant exposure to MRSA, a difficult-to-treat staph infection.

But corrections officials refute that claim. "Once they are in here, as long as the institution is keeping things relatively clean and the inmates and officers are washing their hands frequently, it really has a much lower level than the outside," said Rebecca Bingham, clinical director for state corrections. Bingham said that although the DOC doesn't track cases of MRSA, she believes there are four unconfirmed cases of the infection.

The state says it is doing its best to keep the jails clean and safe.

A more recent case illustrates Dr Bingham's attitude to prisoners' health.

Joseph Alexie, an Alaska Native, died of tuberculosis on December 9, 2008, on his daughter's 5th birthday, while incarcerated at Red Rock correctional center in Arizona. Red Rock is the facility the Alaska Department of Corrections has a contract with to house Alaskan inmates. Even though Joseph Alexie was in Arizona when he died, he was governed by Alaska Department of Corrections health standards.

"Occasionally villages will have an outbreak of tuberculosis where quite a few people get exposed and go on the INH treatment, but it is pretty rare in the United States for someone to die from it," says Department of Corrections Clinical Director Dr. Rebecca Bingham.

"He kept going and trying to get checked up, but they kept sending him away telling him it was bronchitis, or this or that, and they were just giving him a wrong diagnosis every time, without really giving him any medical attention." Says Myra Colley, Joseph Alexie's cousin.

His family says no matter what his crimes, he should not have died behind bars from a controllable and treatable disease.

Though they are bound by federal laws not to talk about the health of specific inmates, the clinical director for DOC, Dr Rebecca Bingham, said that if they had known an inmate was that sick, they would have treated him. Joseph didn't tell anyone he was feeling bad in time.

Joseph Alexie was set to get out of jail this June.


Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin has been sued by a prisoner named Berry L Jack, who claimed he was raped for 3 days, treated at a medical facility, and then denied recommended therapy thereafter.

Jack brought the suit against Sarah Palin and Debbie Miller, Correctional Superintendent at the Mat-Su pre-trial facility, Palmer, on March 10, 2008.

Berry Jack's claim and amended claim contain the following passages:

"I was raped and beaten for 3 days while in the custody of the Department of Corrections. The Anchorage Sexual Assault Response Team and the State Troopers told the DOC that I needed extensive therapy. The answer was NO.

One mental health worker said to me: "Everyone needs a bit of a stiff dick stuck inside of them from time to time."

I made many requests for treatment and orders came down from Debbie Miller that the answer was no and for me to deal with it.

I wrote a letter to Governor Palin asking for help and her first letter said she supported Debbie Miller. On December 23 I wrote to the governor again and she turned the State Troopers on me.

On March 12 all my evidence court documents were destroyed by the DOC."

The outcome of Mr Jack's court case, June 2, 2008:

ORDER OF DISMISSAL

Berry L. Jack, a self-represented prisoner, filed a civil rights complaint, which
this Court screened as required under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B) and 1915A.1 Mr.
Jack then filed an amended complaint, as permitted by the Court, but since that
time, mail sent to him has been returned to the Court, and Mr. Jack has filed no
notice of change of address.

It looks like, having made the effort to file a lawsuit, Berry Jack has gone missing while his case was being dealt with by the Court. It's very unlikely that anybody will go to the trouble of finding out what happened to him. Neither Sarah Palin nor Debbie Miller had to respond to his allegations.


It's interesting to note some similarities in the attitudes of these people in positons of power, as described above.

Joe Schmidt feels victimised and bullied, Dr Rebecca Bingham denies any responsibility for either case and ultimately blames a prisoner for his own death. Sarah Palin famously feels victimised all the time, denies responsibility for anything and is very good at blaming others for her mistakes, ill-judgement and shortcomings.

For people who constantly say that they are all about honesty and accountability, they seem to close ranks and collude to deny wrongdoing, suppress any attempts to verify the truth and are very quick to apportion blame to others.

These are the things that define the ethos of Sarah Palin's office.


UPDATE! I found Mr Jack in the system after June 2nd. For court case details, click here. Navigate through the tabs to find all dates, etc. (Posted by Regina at 23:32)

Links
More on Joe Schmidt on ADN and KTUU (page 1) Joe Schmidt's web page. Previous post on this blog.
Rebecca Bingham on MRSA (page 2 of KTUU report) and Alexie's case
Berry Jack's claim, amended claim and Court case outcome.
Article about assault on Berry Jack on ADN.
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