ISER 2012 Working Paper No. 1

Large resource development projects take years to plan. During that planning time, the public frequently debates the potential benefits and risks of a project, but with incomplete information. In these debates, some people might assert that a project would have great benefits, while others might assert that it would certainly harm the environment. At the same time, the developer will be assessing different designs, before finally submitting one to the government permitting agencies for evaluation and public scrutiny. For large mines in Alaska, the government permitting process takes years, and often includes an ecological risk assessment. This assessment is a data-intensive, scientific evaluation of the project’s potential ecological risks, based on the specific details of the project. Recently, some organizations have tried to bring scientific rigor to the pre-design public discussions, especially for mining projects, through a pre-design risk ecological risk assessment. This is a scientific assessment of the environmental risks a project might pose, before the details of project design, risk-prevention, and risk-mitigation measures are known. It is important to know whether pre-design risk assessment is a viable method for drawing conclusions about risks of projects. If valid risk predictions can be made at that stage, then people or governments would not have to wait for either a design or for the detailed evaluation that is done during the permitting process. Such an approach could be used to short cut permitting. It could affect project financing; it could affect the schedule, priority, or even the resources that governments put toward evaluating a project. But perhaps most important: in an age where public perceptions are an important influence on a project’s viability and government permitting decisions, a realistic risk assessment can be used to focus public attention on the facts. But if the methodology is flawed and results in poor quality information and unsupportable conclusions, then a pre-design risk assessment could unjustifiably either inflame or calm the public, depending on what it predicts.Executive Summary / Section 1. Introduction / Section 2. Overview of Ecological Risk / Section 3. Ecological Risk Assessment Methodology / Section 4. Examples of Post-Design Ecological Risk Assessments / Section 5. Pre-Design Ecological Risk Assessment: Risks of Large Scale Mining in the Bristol Bay Watershed / Section 6. Conclusion / Bibliograph

The economic impact of the Liberty Oil Project A focus on employment and wages during the construction phase

We analyze the employment and wages effects that will stem from the construction phase of the Liberty project in Alaska. These economic impacts were generated using inputs provided by Hilcorp. We used a standard input output model –IMPLAN– to estimate the ripple effects from the employment and wages directly associated with the project. We find the following: - Direct employment peaks in 2020 at around 300 annualized jobs. - Direct wages also peak in 2020 at 40 million dollars. - Total direct employment from 2017 to 2023 is 1,019 jobs. - Total direct wages from 2017 to 2023 are about 141 million dollars. - Total direct wages including benefits and burdens are about 201 million dollars. 1 - The total employment- including direct, indirect, and induced- from the Liberty project between 2017 and 2023 is expected to be close 2,700. - The total wages-indirect and induced- in 2017 dollars from the construction phase add up to 247 million dollars. - Our results focus on the onsite construction phase of the project and therefore only provide a partial picture of the full range of effects. For example, prolonging the life of the pipeline has broad effects on revenues and employment that we do not try to address. - We also do not look at the engineering and construction and transportation of drilling and production facilities, of which some portion may be constructed in Alaska

A Case Study of the Pebble Exploration Project

Institute of Social and Economic Research • University of Alaska Anchorage • January 2017 From 2002 until 2013, the Pebble Mineral Exploration Project explored a big deposit of mostly copper, but also gold and molybdenum, in the Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska, about 17 miles northwest of Illiamna (Figure S-2). That exploration stopped in 2013, when a major project partner withdrew. But before that, developers spent millions of dollars, and in the last years of exploration annually employed more than a hundred residents of Bristol Bay communities. This paper describes jobs and income the residents of 18 communities—in the Lake and Peninsula Borough, the Bristol Bay Borough, and the Dillingham census area—got from 2009 through 2012, the last full year of exploration. Most residents of these communities are Alaska Native, and the communities are small—most with populations considerably smaller than 500— except for Dillingham, where nearly 2,500 people live (Table S-1). How local communities can capture more economic benefits from rural resource projects is an important question in Alaska, and the Pebble exploration project offers a useful case study. But we want to emphasize that we’re neither advocating nor opposing a potential mine at the Pebble site. The proposed mine has been enormously controversial in Alaska and elsewhere, because of its proximity to the world-class Bristol Bay salmon fisheries. We looked only at local jobs and income exploration created, to shed light on the potential for resource development projects to help rural economies. Our analysis is based on data from Pebble Limited Partnership’s exploration-site database, augmented with information from contractors. What did we find? • About 43% of those who worked at the Pebble exploration site anytime from 2009 through 2012 were from the Bristol Bay area. That amounted to about 300 local residents who worked at the site some time during the study period (and may have held more than one job over the years). Another 37% of workers were from elsewhere in Alaska, and the remaining 20% were mainly from other states or Canada (Figure S-1). • The number of workers from Bristol Bay increased over the study period, and so did employee retention. In 2009, 111 local residents worked at the Pebble site, increasing to 157 by 2012. More employees also stayed on the job from one year to the next, with retention at just over half from 2009 to 2010, climbing to two-thirds from 2011 to 2012 (Figure S-3). • Bristol Bay residents worked at 56 kinds of jobs in the study period, almost all seasonal. The most common jobs they held were drill helper, bear guard, and skilled laborer. The average hourly pay was about $19, and most workers earned on average about$15,000 a year from those mostly seasonal jobs. About 65% of workers were men and 35% women (Figure S-3). 2 • Communities closest to the exploration site got several times more jobs and income than those farther away. We grouped the study communities into three regions, based on their proximity to Pebble. Communities closest to the site are mostly around Lake Iliamna, and on average per year about 100 workers came from what we call the Lakes region. About 25 a year were from the 3 Intermediate region and 8 from the Distant. On average, workers from the Lakes region collected a total of nearly $1.5 million a year, compared with$499,000 for those from the Intermediate region and $100,000 among those from the Distant region, where communities are more than 100 miles from the Pebble site (Figures S-2 and S-4). • In the Lakes region, where communities are very small (Table S-1) exploration employment was a large share of total employment: approximately 14% of the total workforce from Lakes communities worked at the site during the study period. The regions farther from the exploration site, which have larger populations, saw much smaller employment effects: 3% of the total workforce from the Intermediate region and barely above 0% from the Distant region. • Even within individual regions, community employment at Pebble varied significantly. Iliamna, where exploration operations were based, and Newhalen (with road access to Iliamna) had the most employees—an annual average of 40 in Newhalen and about 25 in Iliamna, followed by Nondalton with about 16. Outside the Lakes region, the only community with more than an average of 10 workers a year was Koliganek. But even within the Lakes region, not all communities had a significant number of workers—Port Alsworth and Pedro Bay had fewer workers than some places in the Distant region (Figure S-5). 4 • To get a sense of what Pebble income meant to the region, we compared it with income from two important sources: commercial fishing and Permanent Fund dividends. The exploration project brought more income into the Lakes region from 2009 through 2012 than did either commercial salmon fishing or Permanent Fund dividends. But the Intermediate and Distant regions have more people, rely more on salmon fishing, and had fewer residents working at Pebble—so Pebble pay in those regions was a much smaller source of income. As Figure S-6 shows, income from Pebble in the Lakes region from 2009-2012 was several times more than from salmon fishing and two-thirds more than from Permanent Fund dividends. By contrast, in the Intermediate region Pebble pay was significantly less that from either commercial fishing or PFDs—and in the Distant region it was an insignificant amount compared with the other sources. What can the Pebble case study tell us about the potential for rural development projects to benefit local economies? • Residents of Bristol Bay communities and other Alaska places were able to capture a big share of exploration jobs and income. During the study period, 43% of workers were from Bristol Bay communities and another 37% were from elsewhere in Alaska. A number of things contributed to this high local-hire rate, including Pebble’s local hire coordinator; its work with the state government to get training programs and with non-profits to help qualify local residents for jobs; and its contracts with local Native village corporations and other businesses. • Jobs and income going to Bristol Bay residents increased significantly between 2009 and 2012. Partly that’s because the developer was spending more for exploration, creating more jobs. But the number of qualified job applicants from the Bristol Bay region also increased over time. Pebble personnel report that by 2010 or 2011, there were more qualified Bristol Bay residents looking for jobs than there were jobs available. • Proximity made a difference: even though most project employees from all communities were housed at project headquarters in Iliamna, residents from the villages closest to the project site got more jobs. From 2009 through 2012, an average of about 100 residents per year from the Lakes region worked at the project site—about 14% of the total workforce from seven small villages. Prospective workers from places farther away may have taken into account how difficult it would be to travel home for time off workExecutive Summary / Background / Methodology / Community Workforce / Community Effects / Appendice

MOVING FROM THE TACTICAL TO THE STRATEGIC USE OF TECHNOLOGY

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Long-term benefits to Indigenous communities of extractive industry partnerships: Evaluating the Red Dog Mine

Mining, and oil and gas companies developing resources on land historically occupied and used by Indigenous peoples have faced criticism for offering few benefits to local communities while inflicting environmental damage. The Red Dog Mine – a joint venture between Teck Resources, Inc. and the NANA Regional Corporation – has often been cited as an example for developing extractive industries in a way that does benefit Indigenous communities. The mine is located in an economically impoverished region in Northwest Alaska that has few other wage-earning opportunities for the largely Inupiat population. Although the mine has brought demonstrable financial benefits to the region, questions persist about its long-term benefits to local communities. This paper assesses a suite of long-term benefits of the Red Dog mine, based on findings from unique 14-year panel dataset. The paper focuses on the direct effects of the mine on the individual Indigenous workers of the region. Specifically, the analysis addressed the following set of questions: How does employment at Red Dog affect workers’ mobility and long-run earnings? How long do most local residents hired to work at the mine keep these jobs? What percentage of the mine workers live in the communities in the region, and what percentage of the total payroll do local workers receive? The findings illustrate the strengths and limitations of partnerships between Indigenous organizations and extractive industries, and offer insights relevant to Indigenous communities across the arctic and around the world as they plan development of local resources.Ye

Alaska’s K-12 Capital Spending

Report funded by a grant from The Council of Alaska Producers awarded to the University of Alaska Foundation

Fiscal Effects of Commercial Fishing, Mining and Tourism

This report summarizes the fiscal effects of the commercial fishing, mining, and tourism industries on Alaska’s state government. The report calculates state revenue collected from each industry and compares it to the state’s expenditures for that industry. What revenue does the State of Alaska receive from commercial fishing? From the mining industry? From tourism? What does the state pay out to manage each resource? While the comparison between the state’s revenue and expenditures is useful information, this report is not an economic benefit-cost analysis.Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Developmen

Fiscal Effects of Commercial Fishing, Mining and Tourism Fiscal Years 2016-2019 What does Alaska receive in revenue? What does it spend?

1.) Summary 1 2.) Commercial Fishing Industry 11 3.) Mining Industry 21 4.) Tourism Industry 29 5. Operating Budget Detail 39 6. Capital Budget Detail 59 7. Revenue Detail 63Ye

Assessing the experience of using synthetic cannabinoids by means of interpretative phenomenological analysis

BACKGROUND: New psychoactive substances (NPS) have been increasingly consumed by people who use drugs in recent years, which pose a new challenge for treatment services. One of the largest groups of NPS is synthetic cannabinoids (SCs), which are intended as a replacement to cannabis. While there is an increasing body of research on the motivation and the effects associated with SC use, little is known about the subjective interpretation of SC use by the people who use drugs themselves. The aim of this study was to examine the experiences and personal interpretations of SC use of users who were heavily dependent on SC and are in treatment. METHODS: A qualitative research method was applied in order to explore unknown and personal aspects of SC use. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants who had problematic SC use and entered treatment. The research was conducted in Hungary in 2015. We analyzed data using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). RESULTS: Participants perceived SCs to be unpredictable: their initial positive experiences quickly turned negative. They also reported that SCs took over their lives both interpersonally and intrapersonally: the drug took their old friends away, and while initially it gave them new ones, in the end it not only made them asocial but the drug became their only friend, it hijacked their personalities and made them addicted. CONCLUSIONS: Participants experienced rapid development of effects and they had difficulties interpreting or integrating these experiences. The rapid alteration of effects and experiences may explain the severe psychopathological symptoms, which may be important information for harm reduction and treatment services. Since, these experiences are mostly unknown and unpredictable for people who use SCs, a forum where they could share their experiences could have a harm reducing role. For a harm reduction point of view of SCs, which are underrepresented in literature, it is important to emphasize the impossibility of knowing the quantity, purity, or even the number of different SC compounds in a particular SC product. Our study findings suggest that despite the adverse effects, including a rapid turn of experiences to negative, rapid development of addiction and withdrawal symptoms of SCs, participants continued using the drug because this drug was mostly available and cheap. Therefore, a harm reduction approach would be to make available and legal certain drugs that have less adverse effects and could cause less serious dependence and withdrawal symptoms, with controlled production and distribution (similarly to cannabis legalization in the Netherlands)