40 miles from the Village of Elim up the Tubuktulik River, a small gauge sits at the water edge, just downstream from the state-owned Boulder Creek site - the largest known uranium deposit in Alaska, and a hot spot for potential mining. At the base of the gauge, a level troll device pulls temperature and depth recordings every 15 minutes from the bed of the river. The device is there because residents of Elim do not want to see mining develop near the Tubuktulik.
During the 2008 Iditarod race, students and elders rallied at the Elim checkpoint to protest Triex Minerals Corporation, the Canadian mineral exploration company that was exploring the uranium deposit near Boulder Creek in 2006. Hal Shepherd is the director of the Center for Water Advocacy, and has been working with Elim Tribal Council on a data collection plan for the Tubuktulik River. He and Leigh Takak, a field technician for the watershed program, have been boating up the river almost every month for the past two years. Their destination - the testing site - is one of the only spots on the Seward Peninsula with a gauge device that is constantly collecting data. Grants from the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs fund the fuel and testing equipment needed for the data collection project. The data collected will serve as a background data set against which any future water-quality sampling can be compared.
[They should also look at the NURE water quality data collected in 1970s by the US Geological Survey in the same area, as well as part of their background studies to understand natural contamination, that is uranium already in solution that was dissolved from the rocks in the subsurface over millions of years. Uranium mining will take place sooner than later and the Village peoples will be at the table to benefit ($) from the recovery of such a valuable energy resource to supply fuel for nuclear power plants in the future, especially the people of Golovin]
Original URL may have been withdrawn but the content remains above: http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/07/28/elim-gathers-river-data-as-safeguard-against-uranium-mining/
Also see: https://www.alaskajournal.com/community/2008-03-09/uranium-mine-plan-riles-norton-sound-locals
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