Graphite One applies for two staging permits on Kougarok Road
Travelers on the Kougarok Road this past weekend may have seen, or heard, a heavy-lift Chinook-style helicopter carrying lumber and other supplies overhead as Graphite One continued its work exploring a potential graphite mine north of the Kigluaik Mountains.
More flights, and associated temporary road closures, could be expected this summer as the company recently applied for a permit to store a 6,000-gallon jet fuel tank at mile 28 and a second staging area for nonfuel storage at mile 27.
Graphite One Project Manager Loren Prosser said they had anticipated that the first flight in this latest round of operations would be June 8, but it was moved to the 10, and he expected those flights to continue until Friday, June 17. Graphite One has been using flaggers to close portions of the Kougarok while the aircraft are landing and picking up loads. Prosser said that the closures last “typically no more than 10 minutes” at a time.
“The large helicopter platform that we’re using, it’s a twin-rotor Chinook-style aircraft, and it has a very significant downdraft,” Prosser told The Nome Nugget. “Even though it’s never operating above the roadway, nonetheless, it has a significant amount of rotor wash that could cause flying debris and just would create an unsafe situation for passing vehicles.”
Prosser said the company was transporting materials needed to build out the 24-person camp near the graphite deposit. “It’s a temporary camp that’s out on site there,” Prosser said. “We’re adding some additional tent capacities, personnel capacity. So that comes with additional sleeping tents, office tents, kitchens, things of that nature.”
Graphite One was additionally moving large timber bundles weighing up to 8,000 pounds that are primarily used for the platforms to support the drills.
Prosser said smaller helicopters would be used for drill transport later this month. The company’s rigs have been drilling sample cores of the graphite they hope to extract in an open pit mine.
They will also prospect a 20-mile access road with a 6,000-pound track-mounted drill rig, from the Kougarok Road through Mosquito Pass to the proposed mine site.
Last week, the Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mining, Land, and Water permitted Graphite One to use that drill rig needed for the road exploration from May through October of 2022 and 2023. Graphite One says it would only drive short distances on “hard, upland terrain” with the machine, which would drill up to 100 feet. When the rig must be moved between drill sites, the company will take it apart and move it in pieces by helicopter. Several members of the public as well as the Native Village of Brevig Mission and Mary’s Igloo Tribal Council had expressed concerns about environmental and subsistence impacts of this road-prospection work and submitted comments to the DMLW.
The agency ultimately disagreed with such comments, saying the environmental risks associated with Graphite One’s proposed use of the rig were low and that the proposed work, including the helicopter flights, was within the generally allowed uses of state land. However, in response to a concern raised by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the DMLW did “strongly recommend” that Graphite One conduct surveys before and during nesting season within one-half mile of their project area to prevent inadvertent bald eagle and golden eagle take. “Should eagle take be occurring and the applicant does not have an incidental take permit, DMLW standard stipulations allow us to institute corrective action directives and stop work orders until the issue has been rectified,” the decision.
Graphite One has most recently asked the DMLW for permits to store “a single, 6,000-gallon double wall tank containing Jet-A fuel which would be within a containment berm” as well as an employee porta-potty at an existing gravel pad at mile 28. The 2-acre area would be used for refueling helicopters adjacent to the Kougarok Road. Another gravel area at mile 27, near Dorothy Falls, would be used to stage equipment that would be trucked there from Nome and then transported by helicopter to the mine’s work sites. They did not propose to store the fuel at this site because it is too close to the Nome River.
The permit applications do not inform on the frequency of the heavy load truck traffic to haul equipment, supplies and fuel to the mile 27 and mile 28 staging locations.
The public has until 5 p.m. on Friday, June 24, to submit comments on the application. They can be directed to Jaclyn Cheek at the Division of Mining, Land and Water at 3700 Airport Way, Fairbanks, AK 99709, or by telephone (907-451-2733), fax (907-451-2751), or e-mail (jaclyn.cheek@alaska.gov). Member s of the public can also contact Cheek to request to view the full application.