Dunleavy administration orders halt to meetings of Kinross ore-haul study group; ignores request for ‘pause’ in trucking operation
Alaska Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson called a halt to the Transportation Advisory Committee meetings as of Thursday, a surprise announcement at the end of a four-hour meeting.
Now we know why the state had planned a “virtual only” meeting of the group until community and legislative pushback caused the department to reverse its ban on in-person participation. And now we know why senior officials of the department didn’t attend the meeting and why they ordered that a department employee keep quiet during the session.
The commissioner instructed the consultant to have the committee studying the Kinross ore-hauling project end its meetings and finish its work by cobbling something together by email and phone calls, with no meeting to vote on a draft or final report.
“We have been given direction by DOT and need to be very clear that this will serve as our last TAC meeting,” consultant Shelly Wade said.
Anderson’s heavy-handed intervention is an attempt to stifle opposition to Kinross, which is what Gov. Mike Dunleavy wants.
The consultant will assemble a final report from communications with individual committee members, without a meeting to sign off on it. There will be a public hearing or hearings at some point in the future.
This is a terrible way to handle a public issue of major interest to the region.
Patricia MacDonald of Healy Lake, a member of the committee, said she had lost all respect in the process and in the DOTPF commissioner. She portrayed the decision to stop meetings as an attempt to stop the committee from doing its work.
The state will blame the committee for being too slow. The real blame belongs with Anderson and the Dunleavy administration for more than a year of slow-rolling every aspect of this and developing no policy plans or operational changes to deal with the Kinross trucking operation.
Meanwhile, the Dunleavy administration will ignore motions approved by the committee asking for a “pause” in the operation of the trucks and asking which state officials cleared the trucks for travel from Tetlin to Fort Knox.
The state refused to allow a department employee assigned to the committee to comment or answer questions during its meeting Thursday.
In a letter signed by Anderson Wednesday, Anderson said the committee was set up to deal only with items on which there is unanimous consent. He said the state wants to hear “consensus-based” proposals. Here is his letter.
If unanimous consent is required, the committee will be unable to make any constructive recommendations. That is an impossible hurdle.
At a meeting nearly a month ago, the committee voted 5-4 to ask the state to “pause” the ore haul until the state has implemented safety recommendations that have yet to be compiled.
In another motion, the committee voted 7-2 to ask the transportation department who gave Kinross the OK to start its ore haul work before the advisory committee work is completed.
Anderson wrote that the department had no authority to allow or not allow the Kinross trucking plan. This is in keeping with the passive attitude that Anderson has taken throughout this process.
Anderson said that some of the committee members are also members of the group that has filed a lawsuit against the state and that some of the issues are part of the lawsuit. The letter was probably written by state lawyers.
He said that because a lawsuit has been filed “DOTPF must respect the court’s jurisdiction to decide matters placed before it, so it cannot act on the two motions passed by the TAC."
“I have asked my staff to not engage in dialogue as the matters under discussion are the subjects of the ongoing litigation,” he said.
Pam Golden, the state transportation employee who is a member of the committee, said she was not allowed to comment or answer questions at the meeting Thursday.
Golden was asked about cell phone coverage along the route, which has nothing to do with the lawsuit.
“You’ve read the letter. I’m not able to discuss anything,” Golden said.
“I’m not engaging in this discussion because of the litigation,” she said.
Neither Anderson nor any other senior leaders of the department appeared at the committee meeting Thursday and the state consultant said department officials could not respond, based on the dictates in Anderson’s letter.
Jon Cook, a member of the committee, said he and Jennifer Campbell, another member of the committee from Advocates for Safe Alaska Highways, are not involved in the lawsuit in any manner.
He said the committee is supposed to be independent of the state, but it is not, based on Anderson informing members that unanimous approval is required for its recommendations.
He also said the Kinross trucks were making trial runs before the lawsuit was filed, so the state should not be using that as an excuse for failing to respond to the committee’s votes in October.
Cook said the Legislature and the Dunleavy administration have failed the public throughout the process and many of the proposals in the committee review are unattainable over the proposed five-year life of the project.
Cook said the state does not have an increased maintenance plan for this winter to deal with the ore-hauling project. He said that the transportation department should inform the committee and the public about what it plans to do.
Other items:
Kinross plans to test drive one of its trucks through the roundabout at Chena Hot Springs Road sometime today. I’d like to see a video of that if anyone gets one. Send it to dermotmcole@gmail.com
There was considerable discussion about asking Kinross to create a policy to have trucks pull over and allow traffic to pass. The existing state law that says drivers have to pull over if there are more than five vehicles behind them is widely ignored. The state doesn’t want to ask Kinross to adopt any policies and hasn’t made any suggestions for commitments.
There was also discussion of having Kinross adopt a policy about operating in bad weather or when road conditions are dangerous. The lack of state regulation and enforcement on these matters is striking. There is a regulation banning inclement weather operations, but there is little enforcement.
Kinross has a safety plan, but will not release it to the committee or the public. It makes no sense that a committee dealing with safety can’t get access to the safety plan.
Kinross trucks will have to stop at three state weigh stations when they are open. The stations are often closed, however.
The committee is proposing many safety initiatives, but all of the serious proposals had some opposition.
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